Zimbabwe turns to PTA to fund new diamond mining firm

Zimbabwe is negotiating with the Preferential Trade Area (PTA) Bank and the Development Bank of Belarus for funding to capitalise the recently established Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC), central bank governor John Mangudya told Parliament yesterday.

Government this year established ZCDC after it shut down diamond companies operating in the country’s Marange diamond fields after they refused its proposals to nationalise the industry.

Mangudya told Parliament’s committee on Finance that government was negotiating lines of credit to fund ZCDC and other mining activities.

“We have been negotiating facilities with the PTA Bank, Afrexim Bank, Development Bank of Belarus and we have found some lines of credit that we are providing to the artisanal miners and the bigger mining firms. We have raised $250 million towards the mining sector but it is not sufficient,” he said.

“We are organising funding so we can get some equipment for the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company for them to expand their production. ”

Last week, Mines Minister Walter Chidhakwa said that about 270 000 carats of diamond have already been auctioned under ZCDC. Government intended to eventually increase ZCDC’s monthly output to a million carats, he added.

Mangudya said the central bank’s latest measures to boost export income — a five percent export incentive backed by the $200 million Afreximbank facility to be paid out to exporters in bond notes — would go a long way to promote exports and curb the smuggling of the minerals from the country. The bond notes would also only circulate in the country, to prevent cash flight from the country which has left the country in the grip of a liquidity crisis.

“We need to put more money in the mining sector that is why we are putting an incentive because we want to promote exports.”-The Source

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