 HARARE – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident co-ordinator Alain Noudehou and incoming Word Vision country director, Edward Brown, have given a vote of confidence to the Zimbabwe inclusive government which they say has made progress since its consummation in 2009.
After meeting Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai at his Harare offices, the duo said they had seen positives between Tsvangirai, his deputy, Arthur Mutambara and President Robert Mugabe which they are pleased to support. Noudehou, who replaced long-serving resident representative Agostinho Zacarias said his courtesy call on Tsvangirai was a continuation of the UNDP’s support for the inclusive government.
The UNDP has been at the centre of the constitutional making funding which last week was dealt a body blow when donors pulled the plug on the supplementary budget which had been drawn up to conclude the outreach programme in Harare and Bulawayo.
An estimated US$8 million had been budgeted for the remainder of the national outreach programme. World Vision, which has in the past clashed with Mugabe and his combative Zanu PF supporters, said it is pleased with the actions of the country’s leaders.
Brown said although he is yet to meet with partners that include Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and continue with dialogue which his predecessor had been actively involved in, the signs were good.
“So far so good”, Brown told journalists when asked if the trio of Zimbabwean leadership was working from the same template. Both the UNDP and World Vision have been heavily involved in humanitarian aid in Zimbabwe. World Vision was once banned by Mugabe in 2008 when political temperatures hit a boiling point prompting its temporary withdrawal from humanitarian relief and development operations.
At the time, World Vision had activated a relief programme that involved distributing 4 000 metric tonnes of food that benefited about 700,000 people, including 400,000 school children in supplementary feeding programs and 100,000 elderly and chronically ill people in institutional feeding programs.
(dailynews.co.zw)
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 One of the world’s biggest oil company the British Petrolium (BP) and Shell is selling it’s subsidiaries in Zimbabwe and other African countries. Due to falling profits or trading margins, BP and Shell is selling its Zimbabwean assets after the country’s promulgation of empowerment laws entitling locals to a 51 percent shareholding of foreign–owned businesses. BP is however selling it’s assets not necessarily because of pressure and Zimbabwe’s controversial indigenisation laws, but the market is “no more than a trickle” and insignificant a growth point or place in terms of BP’s new global focus, and operation anchored in drilling.
While BP and Shell are totally separate entities internationally, their local subsidiaries are run under a joint venture managed by the former, and called BP and Shell Marketing Services. With a head count of 400, BP’s operation, for instance, has domestic and industrial lubricant manufacturing facilities such as its Willowvale blending plant, nine convenient stores and nearly 87 retail outlets countrywide.
The outfit, which also markets aviation fuels, natural gas and dispenses up to 30 million litres of blended fuels for regional neighbours Malawi, and frequently–distressed Lusaka, forms part of what the European partnership is selling.
Apart from the world-class Harare blending facility, BP also has bulk storage tanks and maintenance equipment around the country, including a major holding depot in Gweru.
In March, the company announced that it was disposing of its marketing business in Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania and Zambia, as it zeroes in on refining and greater markets such as Mozambique and SA.
“This follows a strategic review by BP into its refining and marketing businesses in southern Africa, which showed the company should focus on those countries… (offering) the greatest synergies with its supply portfolio,” it said.
Maseko, however, assured regional governments and employees that the troubled company is staying, and will enlarge its investments. Apart from Mozambique and Pretoria, BP is deeply involved in Angola, Algeria, Egypt and Libyan projects, where it is expanding its value chain infrastructure or position.
While the BP top man stressed that they were selling businesses which they considered of “good value and great potential” to the purchaser, controversy has dogged the exercise amid revelations that the oil multinational was trying to “sanitise” its act and sale of Zimbabwean assets by involving ill–funded local groups.
Knowledgeable sources said two of the investment groups or consortia, which the company has been negotiating with and known as Positive Energy, and Sabrex, are unhappy with BP’s presentation of a “window–dressed” empowerment deal or transaction for approval by Kasukuwere’s department, when it had reached a tentative agreement with Kenya’s Kenolkobil.
An oil trader himself, Kasukuwere’s company Comoil belongs to the splinter Positive grouping alongside Downtown Petroleum, John Makova’s Exor, and Wedzera Petroleum owned by reclusive tycoon Eric Nhodza.
On the other hand, Sabrex – pitched as the bona fide and all–embracing negotiating platform for the BP assets – now comprises Kudakwashe Tagwirei’s Sakunda Energy, Redan and other smaller players.
BP, which in July fobbed off a US$20 million Strauss Logistics lawsuit, has been negotiating with the parties since early this year, although personal ambitions of the characters involved and Zimbabwe’s complex political economy are getting the better of progress.
(zimbabweanmetro.com)
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 As Zimbabwe recovers from 10 years of economic and political meltdown many celebrities are visiting the country, recently popular American evangelist Joyce Meyer was in the country for some evangelistic crusades. Multi- national companies are also on the exodus to the once bread basket of Africa, last week Mcdonalds food restaraunts said they were planning to open some restaurants in Harare.
US AMERICAN R&B star Akon (pictured right) revealed he dreamed of visiting Zimbabwe “for a long, long time” as he arrived in Harare on Thursday for a weekend gig alongside Jamaican reggae star Sean Paul. They are expected to visit the amazing Victoria Falls afterwards. Akon said: “I think there have been a lot of misconceptions about a lot of places in Africa. But when you land in these places, you never really see what they are talking about.
“You never get to see the misconceptions that are as far as the place being undeveloped … As far as I can see, Zimbabwe is a beautiful place and I haven’t seen anything that contradicted the positive things that I have heard before.”
Mupfurutsa, a popular local singer and music producer, said: “To us, it’s a dream come true to have such an accomplished musician who is right at the top of his game to visit the country.
“Believe it or not, he is not here for the cash but for the bash; not for the money but for the honey. I am so excited that he accepted our invitation and he came here together with his friends.”
(newzimbabwe)
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 THE half-year performance by a number of Zimbabwean companies is indicative of a re-bounding economy, despite the persistent liquidity crunch in the market that has constrained enhancement of the local industry’s productive capacities. (Zimbabwe capital Harare pictured)
With the local market facing persistent cash shortages, many companies have failed to raise funds for re-capitalisation via traditional means including bank loans and external lines of credit. Although illiquidity has persisted, there have been signs that it could ease by the close of 2010.
Imara Asset Management, for instance, notes that there has been a slight improvement with regards to interest rates in the country.
“There appears to be a definite easing of liquidity in the market as determined by interest rates. Where interest rates had previously been in the 30 to 45 percent per annum range for certain borrowers these have now fallen to between 10 to 20 percent per annum,” it says.
An improvement in the availability of cheap funds from banks operating in the country is fundamental to the extent that it acts naturally to boot high lending rates, which improves the flow of liquidity in the market.
The economy, however, still remains trapped in various other bottlenecks including power shortages, high tariffs and utility charges, which have somewhat stagnated local industry’s capacity utilisation averaging at between 35 to 40 percent.
Nevertheless, some companies have made significant headway in terms of their operations despite the illiquidity to post impressive performances within the first half of 2010.
Zimbabwe Platinum Holdings, the country’s largest producer of platinum, swung back to profit this year after its production of Platinum Group Metals almost doubled.
The platinum miner said after tax profit for the year-end to June this year soared to US$122 million after posting a US$25 million loss during the same time last year, rendering it one of the most profitable companies in Zimbabwe in the period.
During the same period Dairibord Holdings registered a 93 percent improvement in turnover to US$31,3 million, and an after-tax profit of US$2,8 million.
Agricultural implements concern Zimplow Limited posted US$3,4 million in revenue during the six months to June 2010 and its attributable profit for the period amounted to US$312 464 and proposed to re-capitalise its Strategic Business Units.
Delta Corporation’s turnover rose 54 percent to US$101 million during the second quarter of this year. The company indicated that it was investing US$160 million in new bottling lines, glass packaging and the boosting of its mothballed plant in the upcoming three-year period in anticipation of increased demand of its beverages.
BancABC (Zimbabwe) posted a US$4,2 million profit during the first half of 2010 this year.
Seed Co Limited reported impressive results for its full year to March 2010.
Turnover increased 43 percent to US$77 million with good contribution from all operations. Zambia continued to dominate contributing 34 percent, followed by Zimbabwe with 30 percent, then East Africa and Malawi.
However, prevalent market fundamentals have compelled the businesses to exercise financial prudence as the majority have chosen not to declare dividends, preferring to consolidate on the gains and re-capitalise their operations.
The majority of Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed companies are yet to release their financial statements for the first six-month period.
The Zimbabwean economy is picking up, albeit gradually, as the recent slow-down in annual inflation testifies.
“The year-on-year inflation rate (annual percentage change) for the month of July 2010 as measured by the all items Consumer Price Index stood at 4,1 percent, shedding 1,2 percentage points on the June 2010 rate of 5,3 percent,” noted the Zimbabwe National Statistical Agency recently.
There have also been significant transformations with regard to other economic rudiments.
For example, Government revenue figures for 2010 have continued on a growth path. Revenue for the first quarter of the year of US$411,5 million was 29,5 percent ahead of the financial plan.
Government expenditure was also ahead of budget by 13,5 percent at US$386 million.
Re-capitalisation drives by key industry players is set to augment capacity utilisation and boost economic growth in the remaining months of 2010.
(herald.co.zw)
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 MOUNT HAMPDEN, Zimbabwe (AFP) – A diamond firm operating from Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields has begun constructing a multi-million dollar cutting and polishing centre in the country, officials said Tuesday.
The Zimbabwe Diamond Technology Centre, which is being constructed by Canadile miners, one of the three firms operating in Marange, is set to become operational within six months.
Faber Chidarikire, governor for Mashonaland West province said the diamond industry was set to revive the country’s economic woes.
“The ailing country’s economy shall be revived through the proceeds, marketing rates, making life easy for the minister of finance (Tendai Biti),” Chidarikire said. Early this month, Zimbabwe resumed trading of Marange diamond sales since international regulators partially lifted a ban imposed after the military seized control of the mines.
The sale generated about 30 million US dollars, according to government figures. Upon completion, the centre is expected to create 7,000 jobs. Cougan Matanhire, chairman of Canadile miners said the centre would funnel all the rough diamond streams of Zimbabwe into one professional and high security area.
“This is the centre where we will transform rough diamonds into polished diamonds,” Matanhire told delegates who attended the launch. A Belgian, diamond expert, Filip Van Laere said Marange fields could produce 40 million carats annually.
Once fully completed, the 20 million US dollar centre will have among other things banks, a diamond college and insurance firms. In January, diamond watchdog Kimberley Process halted the sale of stones from Zimbabwe’s eastern Marange diamond fields after documenting military abuses against civilians.
The Zimbabwean government reacted by imposing a blanket ban on the export of
diamonds until the Kimberley Process gave its Marange diamonds a clean bill
of health.
(AFP)
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 ZIMBABWE has secured a 50-million-dollar loan facility from the Africa Export Import Bank to revive help revive the country’s agriculture and manufacturing industries, the bank said Monday.”The purpose of the revival fund is to resuscitate a broad range of firms in the productive sector especially in agriculture and manufacturing by providing medium-term funding,” Gift Simwaka, an official of the bank, said.
In addition the Zimbabwe government will also contribute 20 million dollars to the joint loan facility which will be disbursed through banks to small and medium scale companies.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said the loan will help the country revive its economy. “The facility was established to curtail the challenges of high interest rates, unequal distribution of lines of credit … limited lines of credit and lack of financing within the economy,” Tsvangirai said.
“While this facility represents a positive development it alone cannot address economic challenges that face Zimbabwe.”
Zimbabwe’s economy, which has been facing difficulties over the last years, is slowly recovering after the formation of a unity government by President Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai in February 2009.
The unity government off-loaded the worthless Zimbabwe dollar introducing multiple currencies such as the US dollar into the economy.
The unity government has been battling to secure lines of credit from international banks but no major loans have been secured.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti ( pictured) said the “lack of capital” has been “one of the major structural bottlenecks bedevilling” the country’s economic turn around.
(newzimbabwe.com)
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 Zimbabwe’s finance Minister Tendai Biti says the existing multiple currency regime will stay in place until 2012 when it is likely to be replaced by a single currency for the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).
Biti told a meeting of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe in the resort town of Victoria Falls that it was likely the Zimbabwe dollar would not be brought back into circulation. “We have said the currency regime will only be looked after 2012.
“The debate is then what happens after 2012. It will depend more on regional integration as you know that respective states are working towards integration and the possibility of using a single currency,” he said. However the regional block says it hopes to achieve monetary union in 2016 and implement a single currency by 2018.
The country abandoned use of the virtually worthless Zimbabwe dollar in 2009 opting for more stable currencies such as the South African Rand, the Botswana Pula and the United States Dollar.
The decision helped end years of hyperinflation and reverse a decade-long economic decline.
Still, the coalition government appears divided over the issue with members of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF insisting on re-introducing the Zimbabwe dollar while the other coalition partners argue that the country’s economy has not recovered sufficiently.
Meanwhile Biti also confirmed that the debt-ridden Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe would sack at least 2000 employees from its bloated workforce as part of efforts to streamline its operations. The bank’s staff complement rose from under 1000 to 2600 over the last few years as the institution printed money for various quasi-fiscal operations that included provision of direct funding to nearly all economic sectors.
Critics claim these activities helped stock inflation while the bank insists they prevented the country’s total economic collapse.
Biti also said the government would not take over the bank’s US$1.1 billion debt until the legal requirements were satisfied adding the matter was being discussed by the coalition principals.
“Legally, the Government cannot just inherit the debt. It will be against the law, and what it means is that there has to be a legal instrument put in place by an Act of Parliament,” he said.
President Mugabe recently invoked the presidential powers temporary measures legislation to bar the seizure of bank assets by companies owed various sums the institution.
(newzimbabwe.com)
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 Woolworth Stores (pictured) one of the oldest retail shops plans to re-open its stores in Zimbabwe capital Harare. The clothing and food retailer wants to open up a store within 18 months to take advantage of a recovering economic and political environment in the country which has seen investors eyeing the once breadbasket of Africa.
“We are going to re-open. We think Zimbabwe is going to be fantastic economy in five years time,” said outgoing CEO Simon Susman. “We are negotiating leases with shopping centres … I want to go up and start trading within the next 18 months.”
The chain used to have a branch in Harare’s First Street Mall in the building now occupied by Kingdom Bank. Reports suggest the company among several to have taken up space at the recently completed Joina Centre, Harare’s largest commercial building.
A number of global chains, including McDonalds have indicated interest in moving into Zimbabwe, attracted by the country’s improving economic prospects.
The decision to ditch the Zimbabwe dollar, primarily helped end the hyperinflation experienced over the last decade while political tensions have also eased since the formation of the inclusive government.
Meanwhile, Susman said the group, which also operates in Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland, was looking at opportunities in the east African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania as part of its Africa expansion plan.
(newzimbabwe.com)
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 As Zimbabwe recovers from the 10 years of economic and political problems it’s tourism sector has raked in over US$350 million in the first half of the year and is projected to surpass the target of three million tourist arrivals before year-end. Tourism and Hospitality Industry Permanent Secretary Dr Sylvester Maunganidze told The Herald yesterday that hotel bookings had vastly improved and surpassed Government projections.
He said most of Zimbabwe’s top hotels, particularly those in Victoria Falls, were fully booked by foreigners up to mid-September. Dr Maunganidze said indications were that the tourism sector would surpass the projected 12 percent contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product by 2012.
“Before the end of July, the tourism sector raked in US$360 million and we are expecting to double that by year-end. Despite the vilification of Zimbabwe by the Western media, tourists know that Zimbabwe is endowed with good tourist sites and have defied all odds of travel bans by some Western countries.
“We are on the rise and probably by December we will be sitting on the same level we were in 1998 — recording plus or minus three million tourist arrivals.
“At least two British planes are landing in Victoria Falls daily and tourists are now making Zimbabwe their destination of choice,” he said.
Zimbabwe plays host to Victoria Falls, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and a World Heritage Site, over and above other sites such as the Vumba and Nyanga mountains in Manicaland, the Great Zimbabwe Monument in Masvingo and Lake Kariba.
Dr Maunganidze said apart from the traditional European visitors, the country was also receiving an influx of tourists from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.
He said a combination of factors — including “sterling efforts” by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority — had contributed to the dramatic upturn in the sector.
Dr Maunganidze said Zimbabwe had taken full advantage of being on the United Nations tourism body to market the country.
“After almost 10 years in the wilderness, Zimbabwe was readmitted in the family of international tourism and we were voted in the United Nations World Tourism Organisation executive council.
“We now have access to tourism meetings in countries that have imposed sanctions on us and we are taking advantage of that to repackage, rebrand and market the country as a safe tourism destination,” he said.
The UNWTO executive council executes the body’s policies and decisions through various programmes and activities.
Zimbabwe sits on the council until 2013.Dr Maunganidze said Zimbabwe won the 2010 Regional Tourism Organisation of Southern Africa chairmanship and was maximising on that opportunity as well.
He, however, expressed concern over the behaviour of some “unscrupulous” operators in the sector who were not remitting the tourism levy to the Government.
He warned all companies that the law would descend heavily on those who breached it.
“ZTA is empowered to sue all those who evade remitting. Hotels are only agents who collect the 2 percent levy on behalf of the ZTA,” he said.
There is, however, a mismatch between head counts and bank accounts, raising suspicion that some firms are under-declaring their revenues to evade paying levies.
Zimbabwe’s tourism industry declined over the past decade due to negative publicity by the Western media.
This was in response to Harare’s revolutionary agrarian reforms that saw nearly 300 000 black families benefiting from land previously held by just 6 000 white farmers.
This saw some Western countries issuing travel warnings to their citizens, advising them against visiting Zimbabwe. However, concerted efforts by the Government have seen the sector rebounding.
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 Ireland’s trip to Zimbabwe has been confirmed, and in addition to the Intercontinental Cup match against Zimbabwe XI, three one-day internationals between the senior national teams have been arranged. All of the games will take place in Harare, with the four-day fixture starting on Monday September 20. The ODIs follow on September 26, 27 and 30.
Zimbabwe withdrew from Test cricket in 2006 and were subsequently admitted to the Intercontinental Cup on the understanding that Zimbabwe XI’s four home games would be played at neutral venues. But along with the relative political stability in the country, Zimbabwe Cricket has worked hard to improve its structures after divisive squabbling between players and administrators had wrecked cricket in the country.
There had been some speculation as to whether Ireland would make the trip at all, and for a time there had been a possibility that the Intercontinental Cup fixture would take place in South Africa. But both Kenya and Afghanistan recently played their Intercontinental Cup matches in the country, and Zimbabwe also hosted Sri Lanka and India in a one-day tri-series in June this year, so the pressure on Ireland to make the trip was always going to be immense. Now that their tour has been confirmed, it is almost certain that Scotland – who are scheduled to play Zimbabwe XI in the middle of October – will also make the trip.
Zimbabwe XI are currently in third place behind Afghanistan and Scotland in the Intercontinental Cup having drawn against Afghanistan and beaten Kenya, Netherlands and Canada. Ireland are fifth on the points table after draws against Scotland and Kenya and a loss to Afghanistan at Dambulla.
(cricinfo.com)
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