Zimbabwe the investment place to be - Biti

London - Zimbabwe's Minister of Finance Tendai Biti has told investors in London, United Kingdom that Zimbabwe is putting it's house in order and is now a safe and lucrative place place to come and invest arguing it is "unambiguously the place to be by 2015" for anyone serious about good returns.

Minister Biti was speaking at the ZimInvest London 2013 Forum "Why Zimbabwe Matters" hosted by Country Factor at a top hotel in London this morning.

Minister Biti assured investors that Zimbabwe is going to have "make or break" elections by 29th October 2013 which needed to be credible, legitimate and provide a sustainable end to political conflict. He said his Ministry was next week going to provide funds for the registration of voters to ensure that the voters' roll was sound and no longer contained " millions of deceased people who have a tendency of resurrecting every time we have elections."

Minister Biti said Zimbabwe was on course to have a new constitution even if it meant incorporating into amendment 20, the areas parties have already agreed and having a referendum at the same time as elections on those contentious issues.

Biti said Zimbabwe "is pregnant" with opportunities in energy, mining, agriculture and an educated workforce. He said his ministry was working on a new Diamond law that will enable a new Agency to be created that will ensure transparency in the contentious diamond mining in Zimbabwe. He acknowledged that "at the moment, there is a mismatch between production figures and what the treasury is getting." He said a new law was needed because Zimbabwe was likely to be the world's biggest producer of diamonds within a few years.

He said the iron ore deposits in the Mwanesi area we worth about USD43 Billion metric tonnes while coal and methane gas, platinum, gold and "other marvellous discoveries I can not disclose at the moment" make Zimbabwe a place to be for mining investors.

He said his ministry was committed to reducing mining fees by 50 percent but encouraged the Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines to engage his office more on what the industry needed.

Minister Biti said since coming into Government in 2009, he had initiated the Short Term Emergency Programme (STEP) that has set Zimbabwe on a growth trajectory and out of the economic crisis where inflation had broken all records known to bring sanity with an "eat what you kill" policy where "we sustainably live within our means."

He said Zimbabwe achieved the highest growth rate in the world in 2011, which was testimony to efforts to create a 200 billion economy by 2020.

He invited British companies to consider applying for tenders in energy because, "we will spend a billion US Dollar in upgrading Hwange Power Station, need a hydro power station at Batoka and some 20 mini hydro power stations in Manicaland."

Zimbabwe businessman Mutumwa Mawere, attending the conference said it was good to hear of an optimistic picture of Zimbabwe but encouraged the Government of Zimbabwe to do more in the area of ensuring security of investment.

In the past week, the Ministry responsible for Lands has committed to ensuring that all farms that were covered by Bilateral Agreements were not going to be part of the resettlement programme and moved out blacks who had been allocated a farm in Mazowe in response to those who feared breach of their property rights.