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Tendai Mugabe Senior Reporter
President Emmerson Mnangagwa will tomorrow address a high-profile business conference in Pretoria, South Africa, as part of measures his new administration is implementing to revitalise the economy through attracting investment. President Mnangagwa was sworn in as Zimbabwe’s second executive President since independence in 1980 on November 24, 2017 and has made it clear that top on his priority list is economic revival.

Zimbabwean business people based in South Africa and all those interested in investing in Zimbabwe were invited to the high-level meeting. The meeting comes at a time when Government has announced its plans to amend the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act that has been viewed as the major barrier to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

The law, as it stands, require foreign investors to own at least 49 percent shareholding in any business venture, while locals control 51 percent. The proposed amendments to the law would see the 51 /49 percent requirement only applying to diamonds and platinum.

In a statement yesterday, Zimbabwe’s embassy in South Africa said the business meeting with President Mnangagwa would be held at the embassy’s offices.

“His Excellency, Ambassador Isaac Moyo invites all Zimbabweans in South Africa and all business persons with an interest in investing in Zimbabwe to a business meeting which will be addressed by His Excellency, Cde ED Mnangagwa, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe,” said the embassy. The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, 21 December, 2017 at the Zimbabwe Embassy. You are requested to be seated by 13:00 hours.”

In his inaugural speech at the National Sports Stadium on November 24, President Mnangagwa made a call for Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to come back home and help rebuild the country. “The many skilled Zimbabweans who have left the country over the years for a variety of reasons must now come into the broad economic calculus designed for our recovery and take off,” he said.

“Of course, the physical and social infrastructure must be repaired and expanded to position our country in readiness for economic growth, employment creation, equity, freedom and democracy, and for the provision of vital social goods, principally health, shelter, clean water, education and other key social services.

“Our quest for economic development must be premised on our timeless goal to establish and sustain a just and equitable society firmly based on our historical, cultural and social experience, as well as on our aspirations for better lives for all our people.

“Our system of economic organisation and management will incorporate elements of market economy, in which enterprise is encouraged, protected and allowed just and merited rewards, while gainfully interacting with strategic public enterprises run professionally and profitably, all to yield a properly run national economy in which there is room and scope for everyone.”