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Business Reporter
ZIMBABWE remains an attractive market for capital allocators who are seeing opportunities to move financial products in the country.

While Zimbabwe has gone through a dry patch in terms of foreign capital investment, the country remains an attractive market.

Addressing the Actuarial Society of Zimbabwe 2016 Convention on Friday, Mr Gerald Gondo, principal from Riscura Zimbabwe said some businesses that have reinvested in the lean business model in the last three or four years and has had access to capital, may grow in the foreseeable future.

He said this is measured by the interest that Zimbabwean businesses are attracting from South Africa, Mauritius and Zambia among other countries.

“We are starting to see a lot more interest in Zimbabwean businesses from South African, Mauritian and Zambian capital allocators,” said Mr Gondo.

Mr Gondo was presenting a paper on Economic Overview: Drivers, Enablers and Managers of Investment.

His sentiments echoed those of First Mutual Holdings group chief executive officer Douglas Hoto who said there is capacity to move financial markets in the country.

“There is big capacity to sell financial products in Zimbabwe.

In average terms, Zimbabwe is above the United Nations definition of poverty level at $2 per day. As a result we have big capacity to sell financial products because already this population is living on average above the definition of poverty,” said Mr Hoto.

Business, should therefore take advantage of the opportunities through innovation.

“We have to say to ourselves how do we innovate to put this into practice so that we can create the economic dividends,” he said.

He said Zimbabwe has had problems with capacity utilisation most of which is blamed on capacity utilisation.

“I went to a certain meeting where some people were talking about capacity utilisation and I asked them whether they had an order book they were failing to fulfil and they didn’t’ have. But they were claiming that they had low capacity utilisation and yet they had no orders so I do not know who they wanted to produce for,” said Mr Hoto.

Innovation is key if local businesses are to remain resilient and grow.

“It’s a result of trying to relive a thing that happened in 1965 under UDI today, 50 years later. Some industries that were good those days are not for today. Some products that we are selling or designing as actuaries today, which were good then are not for today. We need to move on and do something differently in order to create economic dividend,” said Mr Hoto.

He was speaking on Promoting and Preserving Economic Dignity in the Zimbabwean economic Environment: Leadership Role of the Actuarial Profession.