Mining companies in Zimbabwe will still have to cede a majority shareholding to local investors under planned changes to a controversial black-empowerment law, a ruling party spokesman said on Thursday. "It was agreed that where mining is concerned, the shares should be 51 percent to local investors and 49 percent to foreign investors," ZANU-PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo told AFP after a meeting of the party's highest decision-making body, the politburo.
"With respect to the manufacturing as well as financial services sectors, the position has to be negotiated between parties that are going into the joint venture. "The (indigenisation) minister was tasked with putting the changes in legal format so that they become the law of the country,"he said. The controversial 2007 indigenisation law ordered that all foreign firms hand a 51-percent shareholding to local partners.
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa told parliament last week that cabinet had decided that the law should be changed to make it clearer and more investor-friendly. In its original form, the law spooked investors faced by a weakening economy and high unemployment levels. The indigenisation law has also been a source of conflict between Mugabe's allies, with some maintaining a hard-line stance while others opposed the measures. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo earlier divulged some details of the planned changes to the indigenisation and empowerment policy.