United States Giant General Electric And The US Government Scout Zimbabwe For Possible Investment/Partnership

According to The Sunday Mail, the US government and a major American firm are responding to Zimbabwe’s new economic and political outlook.

The major firm indicating interest in investing in Zimbabwe is General Electric(GE). General Electric is a technology and services company on a global scale. They develop and manufacture products for generation, transmission, distribution, control and utilization of electricity. GE products and services include aircraft engines, power generation, water processing among other things. They have a market value of $261.2 billion

Officials from GE visited the country last week to scout areas they might be interested in. It’s reported they will return but during their first visit infrastructure, Air Zim, rail services and energy caught their eye and could be the markets they end up investing in. According to the USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Harry Thomas Jnr, General Electric will:

make the decisions that are in their best interest and also on how they can best help the people of Zimbabwe because you want jobs, you want power. So, GE can be key to that because, of course, they were very involved in Hwange years ago.

This quote was particularly interesting to me because it seems GE has been involved in the country before this recent visit. In 2017 Co-Ash Resources had plans to establish a  250-megawatt power station in partnership with General Electric. I’m not sure if that’s the involvement Thomas Jnr speaks of but what’s clear is that General Electric has been trying to get involved in Zimbabwe for a while now.

The US also sent White House National Security Council and State Department Officials to visit President Emmerson Mnangagwa and affirm the USA’s willingness to work with Zimbabwe. The delegation also said Trump’s administration had not imposed fresh sanctions on the country.

What are your thoughts on the investment situation? Do you think Zim is ready for investment and do you think we are in a position to choose who gets to invest and who doesn’t? Let’s get talking in the comments below.