His comments come two days after another cabinet minister said most
foreign banks and mining companies in Zimbabwe had not complied with
Thursday's deadline to transfer majority shares to locals.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe addresses supporters gathered to
celebrate his 92nd birthday in Masvingo February 27, 2016. Picture taken
February 27, 2016.
Foreign banks operating in Zimbabwe have submitted credible plans on how they intend to transfer majority shares to locals, the country's finance minister said on Saturday, reducing the chances the government could cancel their licences.
Under an Indigenisation and Economic
Empowerment Act all foreign companies operating in Zimbabwe were given a
March 31 deadline to sell at least 51 percent of their holdings or have
their licences cancelled, part of President Robert Mugabe's black empowerment drive.
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa
said empowerment plans from Barclays Plc, Standard Chartered Plc, Old
Mutual Plc and its two banking subsidiaries as well as South Africa's
Standard Bank and African banking group Ecobank were consistent with the
law.
"I am pleased to advise that all the
affected foreign-owned financial institutions operating in Zimbabwe have
submitted credible indeginisation plans before the deadline of the 31st
March 2016," Chinamasa said in a statement.
Chinamasa
is leading efforts to end Zimbabwe's isolation from the West and trying
to woo the International Monetary Fund, which has previously said the
government should ease up its economic empowerment law to attract
investment.
His comments come two days after
another cabinet minister said most foreign banks and mining companies in
Zimbabwe had not complied with Thursday's deadline to transfer majority
shares to locals.
Under the empowerment rules,
foreign-owned financial services companies will have to sell at least 20
percent of shares directly to locals, while empowerment credits, such
as funding for agriculture and youth and women programmes, make up the
balance.
Mugabe's black economic empowerment drive
has unsettled foreign investors, some of whom fear that Harare could
grab their assets in the same way that the government has seized more
than 6,000 farms from white commercial farmers since 2000.
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