eBusiness Weekly
HARARE – The private sector in Zimbabwe should support government efforts to turn the country into a middle income economy by 2030 through investing in infrastructure to enable the country to lure more investors, an expert has said.
Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) company board chairperson, Ruth Ncube said the private sector should consider investing in infrastructure so that the country could lure more foreign investors.
“Given the inability of the government to directly finance infrastructure, the estimates I have alluded to imply that private spending on infrastructure would need to at least double to overcome the infrastructure investment gap,” she said.
“A new radical infrastructure transformation agenda has been eluding us, and for far too long, we became content in, what some would say, normalizing the abnormality. We developed this false sense of contentment with our decayed infrastructure that truly needs re-tooling, re-kitting, retrofitting, revamping and complete overhauling so that we become competitive and at par with other economies,” she said.
Dr Ncube said Zimbabwe required about $14.2 billion at 2009 prices, including $4.6 billion of private investment to upgrade existing infrastructure and adding new capacity.
“So what an opportunity you have. Opportunities beckon in this country,” she said.
She said roads rail and aviation infrastructure collectively required an investment of about $5.6 billion.
Power development required slightly over $2 billion, while the telecommunications sector required about $200 million in upgrades and another $200 million in infrastructure communication technology (ICT). – New Ziana
