"'We will identify the potential partners and the companies that could be taken over,' Paul Mangwana, the minister in charge of "economic empowerment," told AFP, citing a recent economic reform.
He said British investors held stakes in at least 499 Zimbabwean companies while 353 firms have shareholders from other European countries. A recent act came into force aimed at "indigenisation" -- boosting local ownership of companies.
State media reported meanwhile that companies heeding a call by world powers for United Nations sanctions against President Robert Mugabe's government would be seized.
The Sunday News reported that the government was auditing companies owned or partly held by Western shareholders, with a view to inviting other foreign investors from "friendly" countries to take a share in them. "
""In the context of growing Western hostility, the government is planning to invite companies from friendly countries to move in and take over those companies that will close down," the newspaper quoted a government source as saying.
"Gone are the days of political or generalised invitations to foreigners. We need to move a gear up and approach friendly countries with sector-specific or even enterprise-specific proposals," said the source.
Investors from countries considered friendly, particularly from the Far East, would be lined up in a bid to boost the economic stabilisation process in the country, the report said.
The indigenisation law aims to give native Zimbabweans at least 51 percent ownership of the shares of public companies and other businesses, the Sunday Mail state newspaper reported in March."
Of course, the really serious concern for western companies will be over platinum mining rights. Zimbabwe has already made gestures to allow Chinese firms access, but the real test will be whether the current regime is willing to give up the large current payouts from South African and British firms in return for promised future payments from the Chinese. With so little foreign exchange earning coming to Zimbabwe outside of mining, it is doubtful that the ZANU-PF government will risk threatening the South Africans and the British mining concerns simply to make a point. But the balancing act of Chinese and Western interests will continue to be manipulated by the ruling elite, even as the rhetoric of the "Look East Policy" and cozy relationships with Barclays Bank, Standard Charter Bank, Anglo Platinum, Impala Platinum, Aquarius Platinum South Africa, and Comec continue to offer financial "opportunities" for ZANU-PF's inner circle.
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