Zimbabwe will see better-than-expected economic growth of 4,7% this year, ending a decade of financial ruin, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said on Wednesday in his first annual budget speech.
The growth marks the first time that Zimbabwe’s economy has grown in 12 years, after a decade of stunning hyperinflation that impoverished the nation.
The new figure tops earlier estimates of 3,7% growth, due to stronger performance in mining and agriculture, he said.
”We are now expecting to register a higher growth rate of 4,7% by the end of the year,” he told Parliament.
”We are expecting the economy to grow by 7% in 2010.”
Zimbabwe halted its economic freefall this year by abandoning its local currency, left worthless by inflation estimated in multiples of billions.
Agriculture was once the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy, but farming has been decimated since President Robert Mugabe began a chaotic and often violent campaign of land reforms to give formerly white-owned farms to black Zimbabweans.
The new farmers have been provided few resources for their crops, sending food production plunging and forcing the country to depend on international handouts to feed more than half of its 13-million people.
Planting for a new season is now under way, and Biti said the amount of land under cultivation would expand for both food and cash crops like tobacco.
He predicted that tobacco, once the main foreign currency earner, would yield 200-million kilos next year, up five-fold from this year.
Private investors are expected to pour $600-million into tobacco for the next crop, he said.
Biti again ruled out a return of the Zimbabwe dollar, saying the country would continue to allow use of foreign currencies such as the US dollar and the South African rand.
Biti, a top ally of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, took over the finance portfolio in February at the swearing-in of the unity government with Mugabe, following disputed elections last year. — Sapa-AFP