From The Standard/Written BY TARISAI MANDIZHA

Zimbabwe is in desperate need of investment to stimulate economic growth.

Desire Sibanda, head of Fiscal Policy and Investment Promotion in the Finance ministry told a validation workshop that there was need to realise the importance of attracting investment and growing the economy since Zimbabwe had the least Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the region.

“The implementation of the agreed action plan will lead to the country catapulting its position into the top 100 in the world. Pursuing the report shows that some of the reforms recommended are painless tweaks to our processes with a far-reaching impact on business registering,” Sibanda said.

He said government was saddled with low revenue streams from a narrowing tax base or revenue, disproportionate trade balance and deceleration in economic growth.

Sibanda said the business community had reported a lot of firm closures leading to unemployment and resulting in poor revenue inflows to Treasury.

“Poor performance of revenue inflows and rising recurrent expenditure has resulted in a constrained fiscal space. The manifestation of this has been a glaring absence of meaningful investment in capital projects. These challenges are a result of the nation’s failure to attract significant foreign financial inflows, both Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and long-term lines of credit,” he said.

 

 

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