Zimbabwe, shunned by the West, is trawling ever wider for alternative business partners, but analysts say much-trumpeted deals with its new friends are unlikely to yield meaningful benefits for the country.
The state-run Zimbabwe Central Bank summoned reporters to a press conference last week to attend the signing of a series of memorandums of understanding [MOU] with Russian conglomerate Rusaviatrade said to be worth $300-million.
In theory, the signings should lead to the construction of a new suburban rail link to Harare as well an upgrade to the country’s main airport.
But economists said the signing was likely to be as unproductive as similar agreements signed with the likes of China and India.
”It’s more propaganda than anything else,” said independent economist Wilson Johwa. ”Nothing concrete has ever come out of these MOUs whether they are from China or Russia.”
Once a regional economic model, Zimbabwe is in the throes of an economic crisis with a four-figure inflation, mounting poverty and perennial shortages of fuel and basic foodstuffs.
The economic decline was made worse after the country’s former economic allies in the European Union and the United States slammed doors on President Robert Mugabe’s administration following disputed presidential polls in 2002.
After the imposition of targeted sanctions on Mugabe and members of his inner circle, Zimbabwe adopted a ”Look East” policy, seeking to buttress political and trade relations in particular with China, Malaysia and Singapore.
The Chinese influence is such that the government in Beijing is funding a new department at Harare’s state-run University of Zimbabwe that will offer Chinese language and culture courses.
But critics say the policy has thus far done little to halt Zimbabwe’s economic spiral and are sceptical that the tie-up with Moscow will prove more fruitful.
Zimbabwe last year signed a deal with a Chinese supplier, First Automobile Works, to supply 1 000 commuter buses to ply urban routes, especially in Harare. However only a handful were delivered and the capital’s transport problems remain unresolved.
Chinese investors last year also declared their interest in platinum mining, but the project never took off.
In 2003, Zimbabwe also courted Libyan investors by offering them farms in exchange for oil from the north African republic but the deal again collapsed.
”These are just promises, yet what we need is real investment,” said Medicine Masiyiwa, from the Africa Institute for Policy Development think tank.
”Last time we had Libyans, the Chinese and now the Russians. It just shows that focus is lacking. We now seem to be diverging from the look east policy.”
Rangarirai Mberi, business editor of the independent Financial Gazette, said Zimbabwe’s tight restrictions on international money transfers would be a disincentive to investors such as the Russians.
”This makes it very difficult for any foreign investors to repatriate their earnings,” Mberi told Agence France-Presse.
If analysts are sceptical about the economic benefits of the tie-ups with China and Russia, Mugabe is well aware that both countries are powerful players on the diplomatic front and therefore useful allies.
University of Zimbabwe lecturer Godfrey Chikowore said Zimbabwe would reap great benefits from reviving old friendships with countries such as Russia.
”Russia is a superpower on its own, better than Britain and the US, and it is going to help in the development of our electrical power generation and set up a commercial bank,” he said.
He blamed the collapse of some of the business deals with Mugabe’s new allies on outside interference.
”The problem is that we are talking of influence, directly or indirectly by some Western nations,” said Chikowore. – Sapa-AFP