Zim woos mining firms, approves new projects

HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Sep 16 2009 12:09

Zimbabwe has approved 15 mining projects worth $400-million since February this year, and some are already being developed, the minister for economic planning said on Wednesday.

"The Zimbabwe Investment Centre has approved 40 foreign investments, 15 of these projects are in mining and have an estimated value of $400-million. Some of them have started to dig the ground," Economic Planning Minister Elton Mangoma said.

He was speaking at a mining conference in Harare, which is part of efforts by a new power-sharing government in the country to attract mining companies to invest in a sector shunned by investors over fears their businesses could be expropriated.

The country passed a nationalisation law in 2007, paving the way for the government to seize majority shareholding in mines, in some instances without paying a cent.

The legislation raised fears of a repeat of the often-violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms in 2000, which Mugabe has defended as necessary to correct colonial land imbalances but which critics blame for food acute shortages.

Following the collapse of commercial agriculture, mining has emerged as the top foreign currency earner, with gold alone raking in a third of total export earnings.

Analysts say uncertainty over policies will likely hold back big new mining investments for years.

Zimbabwe has had no meaningful exploration for the last decade while some of the foreign mining companies operating in the country have held back on expanding projects.

Mining companies in Zimbabwe, which has the second highest platinum reserves in the world after South Africa, include Anglo American unit Anglo Platinum, Impala Platinum and Rio Tinto, a major shareholder in a diamond mine. -- Reuters

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