FOREIGN investor participation on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) is down 9 percent, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has revealed.
The development comes at a time when President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration has been working flat out to attract investment into the country under the mantra “Zimbabwe is Open for Business”.
In October last year, Zimbabwe’s statistics agency even rebased its economic statistics and concluded that the nominal size of the struggling economy had increased by more than 40 percent.
However, a central bank monthly report analysing dominant stock market trends for the month of October 2018 indicated a negative trend in terms of foreign investor participation and interest.
“The proportion of foreign investor participation, as measured by the contribution to the value of shares traded, decreased to 9.93 percent in October 2018, from the previous month,” the report noted.
“The month under review saw heightened speculative behaviour by investors seeking to mitigate losses, given the rising economic uncertainties.”
The challenges affecting the stock market have also been worsened by the critical shortages of foreign currency.
Late last year, ZSE announced that it had failed to pay £143,000 (US$182,394) annual maintenance fees to an information technology firm that developed its electronic trading system.
