The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Hwange Local Board (HLB) has developed an investment brochure as part of efforts to attract investors to explore the vast investment opportunities in the mining town.
In an interview, HLB public relation officer, Mr Dumisani Nsingo, told Sunday News Business that the investment brochure was one of the ways of marketing themselves.
“We have come up with an investment brochure which we intend to be handing out to potential investors as well as embassies as part of our efforts to attract investors to explore the vast investment opportunities we have,” he said.
He said the brochure outlined why they were the choice municipality for industrial mining and tourism investment by 2024 among other key sectors.
Mr Nsingo said besides Hwange’s proximity to Victoria Falls and to neighbouring countries such Zambia, Namibia and Botswana the town had vast tourism and hospitality opportunities.
“Why invest in Hwange? Among other key projects there has been an establishment of a new Central Business District, readily available industrial and commercial stands, access to rail transport, less power supply interruption and reliable water supply among other key things,” added Mr Nsingo.
He said buoyed by a growing appetite for investments in coal mining and power generation over the past few years, Hwange is one of the fastest growing economies in the country.
Mr Nsingo said they were also working on a twinning arrangement with Ba Palaborwa Municipality of Limpopo Province in South Africa to unlock investors in the country who can utilise the potential of Hwange.
He added: “To us this twinning arrangement will go a long way in assisting us in improving on service delivery as well as adopting other good governance practice issues. We also see twinning with Ba Palaborwa Municipality as a big opportunity of luring potential investors from the neighbouring country to come and explore our vast investment opportunities while also enabling our people to also explore business opportunities there.”
Mr Nsingo said the twinning arrangement was a brain child of the Trans-Limpopo Spatial Development Initiative.
He said they also hosted a small outing for the South Africans during the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) 2022 where the delegation mooted the idea of having the agreement signed by September this year.
“HLB is set to also ride on the fruitful and cordial bilateral agreement existing between Zimbabwe and Namibia to finalise its twinning arrangement with the Southern African country’s Municipality of Gobabis. The twinning arrangement has been on the cards since 2019, but the advent of Covid-19 delayed its finalisation,” he added
Mr Nsingo said both foreign and local investors had various opportunities to tap from the tourism sector, automobile industry, construction sector, rail transport, sport pavilions, retail sector, value addition, cross border traders and solar projects among others.
