Huge rewards from Special Economic Zones

THE country has started reaping benefits from its Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as it forges ahead in attracting more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in its bid to turn around the economy, an official has said.

Zimbabwe Special Economic Zones Authority (ZimSeza) chief executive officer Mr Edwin Kondo said the country had started realising the benefits from some of the SEZ licensees.

He expressed optimism, saying beneficiaries of the policy were contributing to the country’s economic growth.

“Due to the licensing of Vislink Investments (Pvt) Ltd, citizens have been receiving specialised treatments in the country, thereby saving a lot of foreign currency.

“Afrochine has resurfaced about five kilometres from the main road to the nearby community.

“Varun Beverages Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd donated some cooler boxes to some women’s groups.

“All the licensees also made donations towards the Cyclone Idai victims. More is expected in the coming year as some licensees move from the construction stage to the production stage,” he said.

Mr Kondo added that the authority had been engaging neighbouring countries on SEZs. A delegation from South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry was recently taken on some benchmarking tours. Strategies on expanding trade and investment between the two countries were discussed.

“The authority has been engaging neighbouring countries for benchmarking tours. Recently, the authority received a delegation from the Department of Trade and Industry, South Africa. We discussed strategies on expanding trade and investment for the two countries.

“The visit came at an opportune time as both countries are working towards industrialising their economies.

“Our discussions mainly centred on the development of the Harare/Beitbridge/ Musina/Makhado SEZ corridor, for the purposes of developing the value chains in key sectors such as mining, energy and logistics, among others. This is underpinned by the availability of the vast resources within the proposed corridor. The resources include minerals such as chrome, lithium, manganese, coal and rare earth minerals, as well as the water in the Limpopo River,” said Mr Kondo.

The benchmarking tours will take the delegation to different countries that have successfully commercialised Frugal Innovation solutions.

Benchmarking is a systematic process for identifying and implementing best practices.

South Africa is one of the few African countries that have embarked on the SEZ programme, having started doing so in 1997.

To date, they have designated 10 SEZs. However, only one is fully operational.

Mr Kondo also revealed that in a related mission to strengthen the call to promote the development and economic integration between Zimbabwe and South Africa, a Zimbabwean delegation led by the Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs, Dr Ellen Gwaradzima, visited Coega Development Corporation (CDC) on a benchmarking exercise last month.

“The CDC has committed to extend its expertise to Zimbabwe by assisting with the establishment and operationalisation of a SEZ and dry port in the Manicaland Province,” he said.

The visit culminated in the development of a draft Memorandum of Agreement between CDC and Manicaland Province in areas of cooperation such as the Manicaland SEZ as well as the dry port spatial planning, infrastructure development, operations and maintenance.

CDC is a State-owned company mandated to develop and operate the 9 003-hectare industrial land of the Coega SEZ.

To date, ZimSeza has designated six areas as public SEZs.

These include the Belmont/Kelvin/Donnington/Westondale corridor in Bulawayo, Imvimila (Bulawayo), Masuwe (Victoria Falls), Sunway City (Pvt) Ltd (Harare), Beitbridge and Fernhill (Mutare).

Mr Kondo said the six public zones are at various stages of operationalisation, with each Technical Working Group undertaking various activities in order to ensure the successful implementation of their zones.

Technical Working Groups are groups of stakeholders that are critical in the operationalisation of the zones.

“Two out of the six zones have already flighted their Expressions of Interest and are now at the adjudication stage. This process will lead to the formation of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) for each zone, which will ultimately lead to the development of the detailed masterplans and feasibility studies, thus paving way for the development of key infrastructure in each of the zones.

“It is important to note that of the six Special Economic Zones designated by ZimSeza, four are greenfield projects. The Belmont/ Kelvin/ Donnington SEZ Corridor is a mixture of brownfield and greenfield projects. The aim of designating such a zone is to revive the idle factories in Bulawayo, which can now make use of the SEZ status to lure investors to partner with them,” said Mr Kondo.

ZimSeza has also licensed nine private SEZs, namely Trade Kings Zimbabwe (manufacturing), Ecosoft (agro-processing), Afrochine (mining), Karo Resources (mining), Nkonyeni Agricultural Hub (agro-processing), Varun Beverages Zimbabwe (manufacturing), Prospect Lithium (mining), Lentsloane (multi-sectoral) and Vislink Investment Pvt Ltd.

The authority has further licensed three investors into two public zones. These are food processing firm Davipel Trading at Sunway City (Pvt) Ltd, Shepco BMA Fasteners (Pvt) Ltd and Chingasses Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd in the Belmont/Kelvin/Donnington/ Westondale corridor.

The authority recently licensed about 19 000 hectares of Karo Resources’ land in Selous, as a SEZ.

“Furthermore, the authority is working towards the expansion of that (Karo Resources) zone to include other projects. Another private zone located in Selous is Afrochine Smelting (Pvt) Ltd, which smelts chrome,” said Mr Kondo.