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Tinashe Makichi Business Reporter
French investors are currently engaging Government and other stakeholders over the possibility of striking business partnerships in different sectors of the economy, French Ambassador to Zimbabwe Laurent Delahousse has said.

This comes at a time when French investors have taken over control of some companies such as Seed Co by Limagrain and Anchor Yeast by the Lesaffre group.

In an interview with The Herald Business on Tuesday, Ambassador Delahousse said most French investors have shown appetite in investing in Zimbabwe and more announcements are expected to be done in the near future especially when the time is right.

He said for the deals to sail through in the current Zimbabwe economic environment there should be a separation between politics and business.

“There are French companies coming regularly to Zimbabwe talking to various stakeholders, Government, other companies.

“There will be further announcements later but

we don’t want to go faster than the music but we should also take into consideration that there

has been so much fuss in this country when it comes to deals, some of which have failed to materialise.

“So we are going to let companies work and when we are ready to announce as we did with the Limagrain and Lesaffre we will do so when it is ripe,” said Ambassador Delahousse.

“I think we should let the business people work together as said a few weeks ago at the IMF meeting that it is important for Zimbabwe to leave politics and business separate.

All French business delegations that recently visited the country expressed their willingness to invest saying Zimbabwe is now heading towards a new economic trajectory that comes with new investment opportunities.

They said all visits were exploratory mainly aimed at discovering opportunities in the energy, power, infrastructure and water sectors.

Some of the companies that have since visited Zimbabwe include Alstom, the global leader in power generation, power transmission and rail infrastructure. It has operations in 100 countries.

Bureau VERITAS, a quality inspection firm has already started operating in the country on the inspection on imports on behalf of Government of Zimbabwe.

The Consignment Based Conformity Assessment Agreement between the Government and Bureau Veritas aims to curb influx of cheap imports through inspection of goods entering the country.

Another company that visited, Egis, a consulting and engineering group working in the fields

of construction for transport, urban development,

buildings, industry, water, the environment and energy is also represented.

The group is also involved in project financing, tolling, road and airport operations.