Zimbabwe invites Angolan businessmen to invest in the country’s media sector Angolan Ambassador Albino Malungo participated in the closing of the event The Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services of Zimbabwe, Monica Mutswangwa, invited Angolans interested in investing in the Social Communication sector in that southern African country. The Zimbabwean official’s appeal was made on the sidelines of an event “Zimbabwe-Dubai Media Day and Networking” held yesterday (11/03/2022) at the Angola Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. Exclusively to Televisão Pública de Angola (TPA), Monica Mutswangwa said that it would be an asset if businesspeople in the region direct their investments to the media sector in their country. In relation to Angola, he said that he will shortly contact the Minister of Telecommunications, Information Technologies and Social Communication, Manuel Homem, to study the possibility of Angolan investments in the sector he directs in his country. “This is a good opportunity for Angolans to invest in Zimbabwe, as we are going to give them privileged treatment, as the person in charge of the Communication Sector, I am ready to receive them, and I will try to talk to my Social Communication counterpart in Angola. , to share these opportunities and experiences… we can do a lot together”, he stressed. The media market in Zimbabwe is fertile for foreign investors. “There are many opportunities within the region and we believe that while we invite investors from outside the region, there are also people within the region that we should connect with”, said the Minister, for whom there is a good business environment in Zimbabwe. For the Commissioner-General for Expo Dubai, Albina Assis, the invitation made opens another door for Angolans who want to bet on the communication market “…but it is not only Zimbabwe that has made the appeal for foreign investment, Angola is according to Albina Assis, a diversified market with several opportunities for foreign investment.In addition to the Media, there are several other investment opportunities available in Zimbabwe in the mining, agriculture, tourism and manufacturing sectors, according to the official.
Zimbabwe has significantly renewed its investment climate since the arrival of the Second Republic in 2017, hence the need for investors to seize opportunities. To attract international investments in the Media sector, he said that they started a deliberate initiative about three years ago to repeal all regulatory and legislative pieces of the media that prevented the sector from effectively fulfilling its mandate to disseminate information. “Thus, we open the airwaves for more broadcasting players to enter the sector and break the decades-old monopoly of the state broadcaster, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), and, essentially, we managed to revolutionize the media sector”, said the minister. Mutswangwa. “We now have more privately owned newspapers, radio and TV stations, including community radio stations and campus radio stations than ever before. The Ministry it directs, through the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), has so far licensed 14 community radio stations and seven campus radio stations, as well as the completion of some digital terrestrial television projects that are now awaiting commissioning. The Media Commission Act of Zimbabwe was enacted in April 2021 and the Ministry is currently working on the Media Professionals Bill which should cover media governance or regulation by providing the registration of media houses , accreditation of journalists and a framework for disciplining media professionals who would have violated a code of conduct applicable to them. The Minister believes that these reforms should help open the sector to investments in the various areas of print, broadcast and digital. The event was attended by the Ambassadors of Zimbabwe to the United Arab Emirates, Lovemore Mazemo and Angola, Albino Malungo, the Commissioner-General of Zimbabwe for Expo Dubai, Mary Mubi, and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Zimpapers, Tommy Sithole, chief executive of ZBC, Adelaide Chikunguru and foreign investors.
