The Sunday Mail
Last week, Harare lived true to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s maxim that Zimbabwe is open for business.
Scores of international visitors were in the capital for engagements whose purview spanned a cross section of the national economy.
In the few months since President Mnangagwa’s inauguration on November 24, 2017, the new Government has turned Zimbabwe into a magnet for investors and leading political figures.
One of the first prominent persons to call on the President was Britain’s then Minister for Africa, Mr Rory Stewart, just hours after ED took the oath of office.
It was the first such deputation to Harare in almost 20 years.
Soon after Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May redeployed Mr Stewart, his successor Ms Harriett Baldwin was in Harare to meet President Mnangagwa.
Since then, Africa Union Commission Chair Mr Moussa Faki and special envoy from China’s President Xi Jinping, Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Chen Xiadong have also been to Harare.
On the business front, the beeline to Zimbabwe has been unrelenting and among those that have set foot in Zimbabwe are Russian billionaire Mr Dimitry Mazepin and South African billionaire Mr Robert Matana Gumede; while Africa’s richest man Mr Aliko Dangote sent emissaries to meet President Mnangagwa.
Last week, President Mnangagwa underlined Zimbabwe’s new status as an investment destination of choice.
Diverting from his prepared speech at the Zimbabwe Trade and Investment Conference and Expo in Harare on Friday, President Mnangagwa said: “I urge you as investors to look at the opportunities that are available in the hospitality industry. Hotels are running out of booking space in Harare because of the huge numbers of international investors that we have.”
While dozens of investors were meeting at Meikles for the oversubscribed Mining and Investment Conference, Belarus Chief of Presidential Affairs, General-Colonel Victor Sheiman, was in the same hotel waiting to finalise multi-million dollar deals with the Government of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe Trade and Investment Expo organiser Mrs Josey Mahachi-Agbeniyi said this was the time to investment in the country.
“The Conference was so successful that we have decided to make it an annual event. We had 22 investors from countries such as Germany, Nigeria, South Africa, Benin and Niger Republic.
“His Excellency, President Mnangagwa endorsed the event and it will be bigger and better in March 2019,” she added.
