The Sunday Mail
Online Reporter
OVER 300 prospective investors have approached the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the ongoing Expo 2020 Dubai, expressing interest in establishing business ventures in the country.
An overwhelming majority were looking for opportunities in mining, agriculture, manufacturing and energy.
Statistics from the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA), show that 360 prospective investors made inquiries about business opportunities in the country between October 2021 to January this year.
Responding to questions from The Sunday Mail, ZIDA chief investments and corporate affairs officer, Mr Tinotenda Kambasha said:
“The pavilion registered 306 investment inquiries in the last four months and prospective investors left their intentions through the registration portal.
“The use of portal was shunned by many at the onset of the (Covid-19) Omicron variant.
“A total of 136 expressed interest in visiting Zimbabwe and 125 expressed interest in trading with Zimbabwe.
“The month of December was mainly for visitors on tourism packaged tours and the pavilion had very little investment inquiries.”
There were 68 inquiries on opportunities in mining, while agriculture elicited interest from 66 prospective investors.
The energy and manufacturing sectors had 43 and 35 investor inquiries, respectively, while the services sector drew interest from 25 investors.
In addition, there were 22 and 21 inquiries about opportunities in the construction and medicinal cannabis sector in that order.
There was also interest in the transport, health, water technology and real estate sectors.
The bulk of the inquiries were from India, Ethiopia, Russia, South Africa and Pakistan, among other countries.
The Zimbabwe Pavilion has recorded about 200 000 visitors to date.
There has been commendable investor interest since Government embarked on extensive economic reforms.
ZIDA issued 126 investment licences worth more than US$3 billion between February 2020 and July 2021.
