Zimbabwe offers tax rebates and duty exemptions on all capital goods and equipment imported for tourism, but such incentives don’t get the attention of international investors, according to Walter Mzembi, the country’s minister of tourism and hospitality.
Mzembi is Africa chairman of the World Tourism Organisation Commission. The WTO is a U.N. agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism.
For many people outside Africa, the mention of Africa evokes wrong images of war, disease and mounting social problems, Mzembi said at a roundtable discussion, AllAfrica reports.
Africa suffers huge collateral damage from Afro-pessimism, Mzembi said. “This Afro-pessimism is perceptional and indeed indicts on Africa in many cases very unfairly and continues to scare foreign direct investment into Africa.”
People need to appreciate that Africa had many positive aspects, Mzembi said. These include 20 African companies with revenue bases of at least US$3 billion and more than 100 companies with revenue of at least US$1 billion. This “proves that there are broadly vast opportunities,” he said. “(more than) 316 million new mobile phone subscribers have signed up with over 50 mobile service providers since 2000, which provides an opportunity for growth.”
Africa also has more than 80 percent of the platinum and chromium group of metals, 40 percent of gold and 10 percent of the world’s oil.
“It is unfortunate that many of these positive manifestations have not been amplified and highlighted globally to demonstrate Africa as the opportunity continent,” he said, according to AllAfrica. “Although growth is expected to continue in all areas in Africa, tourism is the centrepiece for accelerated sustainable growth that is likely to drive the continent’s new growth path.”
Continued negative perceptions of Africa hamper its ability to attract foreign direct investment in tourism, Mzembi said.
“In tourism, Africa is seen as a long haul, inaccessible, with poor aviation infrastructure, high airport taxes, is viewed pejoratively as one single destination, and a single negative social development in one corner of the continent is assumed erroneously as if its the whole of Africa,” Mzembi said.
Minister Mzembi said international investors needed to appreciate that Africa had many positive aspects with its dynamism evident in its vast achievements.
“It is imperative that companies globally recognise that Africa isn’t one economy or homogenous population block,” he said. “Africa is a conglomerate of 54 countries which, more often than not, don’t share policies and attitudes, and have evolved differently through their social and economic past experiences. Many of them have put a cocktail of incentives and policy regimes that are unmatched to motivate FDI.”
Minister Mzembi said apart from isolated political incidences involving Boko Haram in Nigeria, insurgence by Al-Shabaab in Somalia and attacks waged by the same group in Kenya, many regions in Africa enjoyed relative peace and stability.
He said the emergence of large African companies presented an opportunity for FDI in joint venture projects.
