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Oliver Kazunga Bulawayo Bureau
Government has removed bottlenecks hindering economic revival and foreign direct investment in the country, Vice President Kembo Mohadi said yesterday.

In his keynote address at the Bulawayo Investment Forum held in the city, VP Mohadi said the removal of impediments in the ease of doing business was in sync with President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s clarion call that Zimbabwe is open for business.

He noted that because of bureaucracy, among other bottlenecks that existed in the past before the new administration, Zimbabwe had for long been isolated from the international community.

“It is not business as usual in Zimbabwe in general and it should not be business as usual in Bulawayo in particular; from henceforth, we must hit the ground running.

“In his inaugural speech, the President made a wide call that Zimbabwe is open for business and hence Bulawayo is open for business,” he said.

VP Mohadi said in recent weeks he travelled to Japan, Spain and Portugal to convey the message that Zimbabwe was open for business and they were all eager to invest under the new dispensation.

“In doing so, or in coming up with that mantra (Zimbabwe is open for business), we had in mind as Government that Zimbabwe had been isolated for too long and one isolation was that Zimbabwe was not open for business.

“All the impediments that hampered the ease of doping business are no longer the case in Zimbabwe,” he said.

VP Mohadi hinted that since the coming in of a new political dispensation in November last year, tremendous effort has been made towards attracting foreign direct investment.

“Just yesterday (Thursday), we witnessed together with the President, a signing ceremony of a huge investment that will kick off on the 28th of March this year, an investment of a magnitude of $4,2 billion (platinum investment agreement with Cyprus-based firm).

“This investment, because of the bureaucracy that we had then, has been on the cards for more than six years.

“But within 90 days of our coming into power, this investment was signed yesterday, so we (new political administration) mean business; hitting the ground running,” he said.

Government, he said, intends to develop various other economic sectors.

VP Mohadi said it was imperative for all stakeholders to engage potential investors in order to restore the Bulawayo’s industrial hub status.

He said the efforts being made to resuscitate the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) by Government were also crucial in the revival of industries in the country’s second-biggest city.

He also commended the business community in Bulawayo for attending the provincial investment forum, saying this resembled unity of purpose for the betterment of the region and Zimbabwe at large.