Zimbabwe’s central bank chief warned Friday the country’s fragile economy could grind to a halt if the government rushes its planned seizure of majority stakes in foreign-owned banks.<\/p>\n
“The implementation of indigenisation and economic empowerment regulations in the banking sector should be done in a manner that preserves confidence since any adverse developments in the banking sector could grind economic activity to a screeching halt,” Gideon Gono said.<\/p>\n
He was speaking to business executives at the annual congress of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries in the eastern resort town of Nyanga.<\/p>\n
Zimbabwe passed in 2007 a law that forces all foreign-owned companies to hand over a majority stake of 51 percent to locals.<\/p>\n
The law has forced mining firms, including the country’s biggest platinum mine Zimplats, a subsidiary of South Africa’s Impala Platinum, to submit schedules on how they will surrender a majority share.<\/p>\n
“We are gratified to note that some aspects of the indigenisation and economic empowerment regulations are receiving attention with a view to harmonize and fine-tune pertinent issues,” Gono said.<\/p>\n
Indigenisation Minister Saviour Kasukuwere, in a government notice made public earlier this month, gave foreign banks and other companies one year to cede a 51 percent stake to locals, as required under current laws.<\/p>\n
Mugabe’s partner in a coalition government, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai dismissed the ultimatum on the banks as illegal and a threat to the ailing economy’s recovery prospects.<\/p>\n
Britain’s Standard Chartered Bank and Barclays Bank are among the major foreign banks with operations in this former British colony.\u00a0 – AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zimbabwe’s central bank chief warned Friday the country’s fragile economy could grind to a halt if the government rushes its planned seizure of majority stakes in foreign-owned banks. “The implementation of indigenisation and economic empowerment regulations in the banking sector should be done in a manner that preserves confidence since any adverse developments in the … Continue reading “Zimbabwe central banker cautions on yet more affirmative action”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[356,648,647,61,180],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-affirmative-action","tag-gideon-gono","tag-indigenisation","tag-nationalisation","tag-zimbabwe"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":891,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}