'Zimbabwe not worried about sanctions'

ZIMBABWE will not preoccupy itself with sanctions by some Western capitals but will continue to work with progressive friendly nations to grow its economy, President Mnangagwa has said. Further, President Mnangagwa reiterated that after the July 30 elections, focus now should be on economic development.

The Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces made the remarks in an exclusive interview with China Global Television Network on the sidelines of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation Summit held in Beijing this week.

"We, as Zimbabweans, should say what potential do we have, what resources do we have, how do we exploit these resources to help grow our economy, to help bring better life to our people rather that say oh let us cry and say those who have imposed sanctions must remove them," said President Mnangagwa.

"They have their own reasons but we are not going to sleep because those people have imposed sanctions on us. We must ourselves make sure we do that which is possible. The world is not one basket. There are so many baskets in terms of international economic environment. There are so many headquarters in the global picture who are very friendly to Zimbabwe. We are saying in our view everyone should be friendly but those who choose not to be, we have no cause to have trouble with them. We will continue to consolidate the goodwill which we are receiving from other capitals in the world and again I should say that there is now a transition to a new world order and those who don't see it are blind," he said.

President Mnangagwa said his Government would continue to create an environment conducive for investment.

Said the President: "Now the political struggle is over, that is in relation to elections. It's behind us. It must now take the back seat. What takes the front seat is the economic struggle. To do so, we need to institute various economic reforms in order to attract both global capital into Zimbabwe as well as to give confidence to all-weather friends who have stood with us throughput the two decades to continue to support us. And consolidate that relationship by also helping ourselves by creating an environment in the country where capital should feel comfort."

President Mnangagwa continued: "I can assure you what is critically important is to be transparent, is to admit where policies in the past were constraining economic development and make legislative amendments to improve the environment in the economic sphere, for instance the area of indigenisation which was constraining (investment) into our country. We have already attended to that. The issue of the cost of doing business, the ease of doing business, the world is now very competitive in the area of attracting investment in to the country.

"Even at the level of domestic investment, we have done a lot to remove archaic legislation that was constraining economic growth in our country."

President Mnangagwa said the fact that Africa had a young population was an advantage and Governments should optimise that and create an environment that empowers the youths. He said he was impressed by the quality of the current crop of African leaders whose emphasis was economic development.

"Political issues are necessary to keep unity in a country, to keep countries united and foster peace its important," said President Mnangagwa.

"But at the end of the day what is critically important is the growth of the economy, the uplifting of the standard of life of your people. The creation of a strong middle class in every economy is important. Those are my views. I believe with the statements that are coming out far different from before where political environment was important, the issue of independence, the issue of sovereignty was critical, now you see most of the leaders addressing economic issues, integration, initially at regional level but also we have to migrate to continental and international level. Yes, of course we have big economies who in my view are taking two steps backward, one step forward but we don't need to follow that.

"We need ourselves to continue with one step ahead without going back again as other big economies are doing."