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Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa addresses participants at a Herald Business-organised breakfast meeting in Harare yesterday

Business Reporters
multi-million-dollar infrastructure deals Zimbabwe signed with China will lay the bedrock for accelerated investment, economic growth and reduction in the cost of doing business, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa has said.
The minister told a highly-subscribed Business Breakfast Meeting hosted by The Herald Business at a Harare Hotel yesterday that Zimbabwe will be able to export surplus power in the next four years following deals signed with Chinese institutions to fund key economic enablers.

The Government, a fortnight ago, signed mega deals with China for funding facilities in projects that include energy, roads, rail, water, information communication technology and agriculture.

Minister Chinamasa said the recent high-powered Government delegation’s trip to China, led by President Mugabe, elicited commitment for funding of viable projects from China’s top leadership, including President Xi Jinping and several large financial entities.

“There is appetite to do business in Zimbabwe on the basis of a very populist political friendship that exists between our two countries” dating back many years to pre-independent Zimbabwe, he said.

The minister, however, said China did not provide budgetary support to any country, but had committed to fund viable and bankable projects in Zimbabwe.
He said Government had since presented to China the list of its priority projects, where it required funding support.

The infrastructure projects are aligned with Government’s targets in Zim-Asset, the 2014-18 economic blueprint under the infrastructure and utilities cluster.
Commenting on the deals, Brainworks Capital, a private equity investment company founder, Mr George Manyere, said Government needed to address infrastructure deficits in energy, water, logistics and communication sectors to achieve real economic turnaround.

“If the Government did not prioritise these particular four (infrastructure) areas, any effort to turnaround the economy would be more talk than action,” Mr Manyere said.

To that end, Minister Chinamasa said he had since January made three visits to China in efforts to re-establish normal business relations with Chinese firms to secure fresh project funding support.

It is against this background that Minister Chinamasa said he had also made commitments to repay all liabilities to Chinese companies guaranteed by Government in an effort to normalise relations with the financiers to get fresh loans.

He said this was “all to clear the stables so that as we go forward we are clearer. We have sought to address the issue as a matter of priority,” Minister Chinamasa said.
Key infrastructure projects set to benefit from the funding commitments by the Chinese government, include expansion of Kariba South and Hwange Power station and dualisation of the country’s major trunk roads.

Government had also secured funding commitments for procurement of locomotives for the National Railways of Zimbabwe, in what will help cut the cost of bulky freight which is pushing up the cost of production.

“The problem for this country is that we allowed the railway system to go to the dogs. Heavy loads such as coal and fertilizer should go to rail, which should reduce the cost of doing business,” the finance minister said.

Kariba South Expansion bankrolled by China Exim Bank at a cost of about $320 million will add 300 megawatts to the national grid while Hwange will bring an additional 600MW to the pool.

Government has also secured funding commitments for a $2 billion integrated Gwayi thermal power project, awarded national project status and a special mining lease.

Further, some of the facilities will fund the digitalisation of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and Transmedia, expansion of TelOne’s fibre optic network and expanding NetOne’s network coverage.

Minister Chinamasa said the Chinese Government had also agreed to support irrigation projects in what was expected to open up 20 000 hectares of irrigated land under the Osborne Dam and Dande irrigation schemes.

Loan facilities amounting to $150 million were also agreed with the Chinese firms for social infrastructure in land reform areas several other areas that will be supported.