Zimbabwe Seeks to List Company Holding State Mining Assets – by Antony Sguazzin (Bloomberg News – January 25, 2021)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Zimbabwe, banking on mining to end two decades of economic stagnation, plans to list the company in which it has placed state mining assets to raise cash to meet government obligations, the nation’s finance minister said.

Late last year, the government created Kuvimba Mining House Ltd., in which the state pension fund and sovereign wealth fund hold 65%, to house its holdings in platinum, gold and nickel.

It intends to use revenue from the company to meet a laundry list of requirements ranging from compensating White farmers for infrastructure on farms that were seized two decades ago to improving pensions.

“In the next two years, it will be a highly profitable group,” Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said in an interview last week. “When we eventually list, government will offload some of its shareholding.”

The creation of Kuvimba, which means trust in the Shona language, is the latest attempt by the government to kickstart its mining industry. While companies have been deterred by local ownership requirements and a frequently changing currency regime, investors from Russia, Cyprus and Nigeria are now exploring digging platinum mines in Zimbabwe, which has the world’s third-biggest reserves of the metal.

For the rest of this article: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/zimbabwe-seeks-to-list-company-holding-state-mining-assets-1.1553403