India willing to extend concessionary loans

Mukudzei Chingwere in NEW DELHI, India

Zimbabwe’s investment lure and economic reboot is set for a lift following the willingness by Indian financiers to extend concessionary loans to the productive sector.

The commitment to extend the much-needed capital injection came at the end of the recently concluded Africa Conclave on India-Africa Partnership where Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga led the Zimbabwean delegation on an investment scouting mission.

VP Chiwenga, who has since returned home, described the mission as successful and said the Indian financiers’ eagerness to do business in Zimbabwe was welcome.

Lack of capital, especially on concessionary terms, is one of the biggest problems afflicting the private sector particularly as it reels under the effects of ruinous illegal economic sanctions. But India, with fund managers boasting billions of US Dollars in investment purses, is seeking to bridge this gap.

“From the two Conclaves which we have attended previously, we regard this one as very successful,” said VP Chiwenga. “You have seen that in our team we brought in the Mutapa Investment Fund, ZIDA, key Ministries and our business people. We had more than 10  businesses represented here.

“But what is more important is that the projects which looked like they had stalled have now been reopened and we will see quite a number of those projects being rolled out. One company after another, one group after another and they are eager to come to Zimbabwe to do business with Zimbabweans.

“All of a sudden India has now opened-up to Zimbabwe and they are very eager to come and do their investment and cooperate with us in a number of projects,” said VP Chiwenga.

Permanent Secretary for Industry and Commerce Dr Thomas Utete Wushe confirmed the willingness of Indian financial institutions to extend concessionary loans.

“Most importantly is the Indian commitment to support and help us with one of our biggest problems, that is access to loans with favourable and patient terms and finance,” said Dr Utete Wushe.

“They promised to plug the gap of financing that our private sector is facing. We are looking forward to engaging with the Indian Government and other financial services  providers to come to Zimbabwe and provide us with an enabling finance mechanism that can support our manufacturing so that it can grow from its level of 11 percent of the GDP back to the days of glory where it was contributing to up to 25 percent of the GDP,” said Dr Utete Wushe.

He said the Zimbabwean delegation identified a number of operations throughout the value chains who are ready to come and do business in Zimbabwe.

The Government’s invitation to private companies to come and be part of the Conclave was a masterstroke as they are also individually set to benefit from cooperating with their Indian counterparts.

“The Conclave is a cooperation between the Government of India and its own Confederation of Indian Industries, so what we did as Zimbabwe we just replicated that model, we came with CZI and other businesses.

“We had 12 private sectors represented here in India and we think all of them had an opportunity to engage in business-to-business meetings and establish relations. I also had an opportunity to meet my counterpart here, the Secretary for Commerce, who committed that he will ensure that we follow through the business-to-business meetings,” said Dr Utete Wushe.