By Tawanda Musarurwa

HARARE – Zimbabwe Plat-inum Holdings posted a 71 percent jump in platinum output to 89 000 ounces (oz) from for the quarter ended March 31, 2016 from 52 000oz in the prior com-parable period.

Zimplats' increased plat-inum output had a sig-nif icant impact on South African-based parent f irm Impala Platinum (Implats) which saw its production for the period rise by 17 percent.

Gross refined platinum pro-duction for the group stood at 353 000oz for the quarter

News Update as @ 1530 hours, Tuesday 26 April 2016

Feedback: bh24admin@zimpapers.co.zwEmail: bh24feedback@zimpapers.co.zw

Zimplats Q3 output up 71pc

just ended, from 301 000oz same period in 2015.

Implats attributed the rise in the Zimbabwean divi-sion's output to " increased mil l ing rate and the release of stockpiled concentrates fol lowing a furnace outage in the final quarter of FY2015."

The local platinum produc-er's tonnes mil led during the quarter ended March 31, 2016 rose 30 percent to 1,65 mil l ion tonnes up from 1,26 mil l ion tonnes in the prior corresponding period.

Mil l throughput over the nine-month period under review increased by 27 per-cent to 4,77 mil l ion tonnes, compared to 3,74 mil l ion tonnes in the corresponding prior period.

"The higher throughput was directly attributable to the measures implemented to recover production loses as

a result of the safety closure of the Bimha Mine in August 2014," reported Implats.

Platinum in matte for the nine months ended March 31, 2016 was 42 percent higher at 220 000oz, com-pared to 155 000oz in the prior comparable period.

The platinum giant said Zim-plats continues to engage with the Zimbabwean Gov-ernment with regards to the indigenisation implementa-tion plan and "the securing of a more conducive regu-latory and fiscal framework for the mining industry in Zimbabwe".

Implats holds an 87 percent stake in Zimplats, as well as 50-50 joint venture with Aquarius Platinum in another Zimbabwe-based platinum producer, Mimosa Platinum Mine.

At Mimosa tonnes mil led

increased by 8,7 percent to 676 000 tonnes for the period under review.

Platinum in concentrate production for the quarter increased as a result of the increased mil l throughput to 30 000oz compared to 28 000oz in the same period last year.

Tonnes mil led during the nine-month period ended March 31, 2016 increased by 3,3 percent to 1,99 mil l ion tonnes, compared to 1,92 mil l ion tonnes in the corre-sponding prior period.

Implats reported that the increased throughput at Mimosa resulted in 2,3 percent higher platinum in concentrate production of 90 000 platinum ounces com-pared to 88 000 platinum ounces in the prior compara-ble period. ●

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BH24 Reporter

HARARE -Zimbabwe is now the biggest investment des-tination for Chinese firms in agriculture in the region, but some of the investors have called for removal of risks associated with the sector for them to do more, an official has said.

The director of China’s department of international cooperation in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Ye Anping, said yesterday that the Southern African country had many advantages in agricul-ture compared to its neigh-bours.

He was answering a ques-tion from The Herald while addressing journalists from 22 African countries who are attached to the China-Africa Press Centre for this year.

“I have information that Zim-babwe has good and a better infrastructure compared to

its neighbouring countries, also the production system is complete in Zimbabwe,” said Mr Ye.

“So, this is why many Chi-nese enterprises are very interested in investing in Zimbabwe in agriculture. Actually, China is has bigger investments in Zimbabwe compared to its neighbouring countries.”

But Mr Ye said the Chinese investors had noted some gaps in the investment cli-mate in Zimbabwe’s agricul-tural sector.

“First, the policy of agri-

culture in Zimbabwe is less transparent and it is uncer-tain and this is the reason why many Chinese enter-prises have their own con-cerns,” he said.

“The other issue the Chinese enterprises have on Zimba-bwe is that when they want to expand their business they find it hard to get loans from financial institutions in Zimbabwe.

“However, the fact is, it is not only agricultural compa-nies, but other enterprises that have a huge interest ...

...Continued on page 8

Zim now biggest investor destination for Chinese agric firms

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Continued From Page 5

in investing in agriculture in Zimbabwe.”

Mr Ye said the situation was not peculiar to Zimbabwe as “different enterprises have different challenges and difficulties in other African countries”.

He said in some African countries, it was difficult for Chinese companies to remit foreign currency, while in others they were not allowed to bring their own workers.

Zimbabwe has since adopted the Look East Policy which is meant to increase its contact and business, mainly with China.

Mr Ye said he believed that the land reform programme was done according to Zim-babwe’s own situation and that its aim was to increase productivity, guarantee food security and raise people’s income.

China, Mr Ye said, was work-

ing on a new round of food assistance to some Southern African countries, includ-ing Zimbabwe, that were affected by a devastating drought last season.

“We provide free of charge food to African countries through multi-national or bilateral channels,” he said. “Through multi-national channels, we use the channel of the United Nations food programme to offer food as assistance to African coun-tries.

“I think some of you have already heard that in the southern part and the east-ern part of African coun-tries we have seen some abnormal climate change issues recently and this has resulted in severe food shortages, so China is now issuing a new round of free assistance of food to African countries and this is through multi-national and bilateral channels.”

Mr Ye said the Asian eco-nomic giant was increasing

its cooperation with African countries in agriculture.

He said since 2006, his country has established 25 agricultural demonstration centres in 24 countries which have so far trained more than 50 000 experts and farmers.

Chinese agricultural experts and technicians were being send to African countries, while some from Africa were coming to China for further training, said Mr Ye.

The Government in January signed a deal with a Chinese firm to set up eight satellite agricultural demonstration centers and experimental farms across the country.

Debont Co. Ltd, the Chinese agricultural company run-ning the four-year-old Gwebi Agricultural Demonstration Centre, signed the agree-ment to partner eight other local agricultural colleges for the demonstration centre's expansion.●

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By Funny Hudzerema

HARARE -Zimbabwe larg-est cigarette manufacturer, British American Tobacco Zimbabwe (BAT) recorded a decline in sales volumes during the first quarter of the year.

However management expects a recovery within the next three months.

BAT managing director Mrs Clara Mlambo said the sales volumes declined sharply compared to last year due to low consumer demand of products.

“Our volumes are below those experienced last year. However we are expect-ing the volumes to pick up through a number of strat-egies and activities which we are putting in place,” she said.

Mrs Mlambo took over as managing director from Mr Lovemore Manatsa on Febru-

ary 1, 2016.

“We just have to leverage on our portfolio to make sure we meet the various consumer needs because affordability has become a big challenge.

“One of the key strategies which we launched last week is this year’s edition of the Madison mega promotion which has running for the last 14 years,” she said.

She added that the promo-tion has seen the company increasing in its volumes over the years.

“So we are expecting an increase in volumes in the next three months,” she said.

BAT has operated at 75 percent of capacity over the past two years, she added.

“This year we are not expect-ing to invest in more projects but we are going to assess the projects that we did last year,” said Mrs Mlambo.

In the full-year to Decem-ber 2015, sales declined 9 percent from 2014. Mean-while BAT company secretary Mr Brain Nyabadza said the company is going to enroll its first students for the BAT Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Empow-erment Trust at Chaminuka Vocational Training Centre in Mashonaland Central next week.

"We are expecting to enroll our first students at Chami-nuka Vocational Training Centre next week and we will carry out satellite trainings in tobacco grown areas," he said.The programme is aimed at improving production in tobacco growing areas.●

BAT sales volumes decline

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HARARE -The equit ies mar-ket cont inues to be bul l ish on the back of gains in the mainstream industr ia l index.

Industr ia ls today added 2.23 (or 2,24 percent) to set-t le at 101.86 as beverages giant Delta gained $0,0398 to c lose at $0,6398, whi le conglomerate Innscor rose by $0,0095 to $0,2100 whi le i ts d iv is ion Simbisa rose by $0,0065 to trade at $0,1320.

Clothing retai ler Edgars put on $0,0030 to $0,0530 whi le Proplast ics c losed at $0,0250 after a $0,0015

gain.

ZPI was the only counter to trade in the red, fo l lowing a $0,0008 drop to c lose at

$0,0087.

The mining index was steady at 20.16 as Bindura, Fal-gold, Hwange and RioZim

maintained previous pr ice levels at $0,0102, $0,0050, $0,0300 and $0,1100 respec-t ively - BH24 Reporter ●

ZsE13

Equities continue on bullish run

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MovERs CHANGE TodAy PRiCE UsC sHAKERs CHANGE TodAy PRiCE UsC

DELTA 6.63 63.98 ZPI -8.42 0.87

PROPLASTICS 6.38 2.50

Edgars 6.00 5.30

SIMBISA 5.17 13.20

INNSCOR 4.73 21.00

OK ZIM 1.99 4.10

FBCH 1.51 6.70

iNdEx PREvioUs TodAy MovE CHANGE

INDUSTRIAL 99.63 101.86 +2.23 points +2.24%

MINING 20.16 20.16 +0.00 POINTS +0.00%

16 ZsE TABlEs

ZsE

iNdiCEs

stock Exchange

Previous

today

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19 diARy oF EvENTs

The black arrow indicate level of load shedding across the country.

PowER GENERATioN sTATs

Gen Station

25 April 2016

Energy

(Megawatts)

Hwange 509 MW

Kariba 459 MW

Harare 30 MW

Munyati 18 MW

Bulawayo 22 MW

Imports 0 - 400 MW

Total 1494 Mw

• 26th April 2016 - BAT AGM; Place: British American Tobacco Zimbabwe Offices, 1 Manchester Road, Southerton, Harare; Time: 10.00 hours...

• 29 April - CBZ AGM; Place: Stewart Room. Meikles Premier Hotel, Harare; Time: 15:00pm

• 18 May - ZB Building Society AGM; Place: 21 Natal Road, Avondale, Harare; Time: 12:00hrs

• 19 May - The Fifth Annual General Meeting of Padenga Holdings Limited; Place: Royal Harare Golf Club, 5th Street exten-sion, Harare; Time: 08.15am

• 19 May - NMBZ AGM; Place: Unity Court, Corner 1st Street Kwame Nkrumah Avenue; Time: 10:00am

• 19 May - Turnall Holdings AGM; Place: Jacaranda Room, Rainbow Towers; Time: 12:00

• 05 May - Barclays Bank of Zimbabwe AGM; Place: Meikles Mirabelle Room; Time: 1500hrs

THE BH24 diARy

HARARE- The Commer-cial Sugarcane Producers Association of Zimbabwe (CSPAZ) says harvesting of the 2015/16 crop will begin next month, following delays caused by increased rainfall between March and April.

Sugarcane, whose harvest-ing usually begins in April, is grown commercially mostly in areas south East of Zimbabwe, particularly in Chisumbanje and Chiredzi.

CSPAZ secretary general Roy Bhila said harvesting would continue until November this year.

“We will start harvesting sugarcane on May 20 this year and the process will be on until November,” he said.

“We are starting a little bit late than last year because of the heavy rains received in March. We need to allow the sugarcane to go through a process known as dry off so that we can burn it before harvesting starts. The rains received in March could not allow this and that is why

harvesting had to be pushed forward.”

Mr Bhila added; “The pro-longed strike at Tongaat Hul-lets also contributed to the delay in harvesting, as the mills were not serviced in time as workers embarked on a strike which lasted for months.”

He said the late rains received had boosted the expected yield and expecta-tions were high that CSPAZ members had a better crop than last year.

“In terms of yield, the actual crop assessment is currently underway but indications are that the yield will be bet-

ter than last year especially with the heavy rains that pounded in March,” he said.

Last year the small scale farmers produced about 679 000 tons of raw sugar. In terms of sugar supply on the local market, Mr Bhila said adequate raw sugar would be available for processing.

Sugar is Zimbabwe’s sec-ond largest foreign currency earner in agriculture after tobacco. Part of the raw sugar produced in the coun-try is processed locally at Tongaat Hullets in Chiredzi and Gold Star Sugars in the capital while the remainder is exported to the European Union.- New Ziana●

loCAl/REGioNAl NEws 20

sugarcane harvesting to begin next month Atlas Mara says it is considering bid for Barclays' Africa unitAtlas Mara, the African invest-ment vehicle of former Bar-clays boss Bob Diamond, said on Tuesday it had held discussions with investors with a view to making a bid for Barclays African business.Atlas said its board sup-ported exploration of a pos-sible acquisition, "given the expected positive impact on accelerating the company's strategy to build sub-Saha-ran Africa's premier financial institution," it said in a state-ment, in response to media speculation about its interest in the business.

Atlas said that there was no certainty that a transaction would be completed but if its discussions with fellow investors resulted in more substantive negotiations with Barclays, Diamond and co-founder Ashish J. Thakkar will recuse themselves from such discussions. Earlier this year, Barclays said it would sell down its 62 percent stake in Barclays Africa Group to focus on other divisions - Reuters●

SINGAPORE — Crude oil futures rose on Tuesday, pushed up by a weaker dollar and a flood of new cash into the market, but analysts warned that fundamentals remain weak as a producer race for customers heats up in the Middle East.

Front-month Brent crude futures were trading at $44,91 a barrel at 1.29am GMT, up 43c, or about 1 per-cent, from their last settle-ment.

US crude futures were also up around half a dollar and 1 percent at $43,10.

Futures traders said prices had been lifted by a weaker dollar overnight, which potentially spurs demand from fuel importers using other currencies than the greenback, in which crude is traded.

A rush of new investment into crude futures was also pushing up prices as specu-lators raised their holdings of Brent futures to a record high.

"The global market is already

close to balance, (and) we expect the market will try to test higher in coming months," Standard Chartered bank said, adding that falling output outside the Organisa-tion of the Petroleum Export-ing Countries (Opec) would result in a rebalancing of oil markets soon.

Yet other analysts warned of more supply as Saudi Arabia and Iran seemingly ramp up output in a race for cus-tomers, further flooding the market with excess supplies.

"Saudi Arabia announced that it will complete an expansion of its Shaybah oilfield by June, pushing capacity to 12-million barrels a day. Iran oil production has now increased by 1-mil-lion barrels a day since the beginning of the year, while Kuwait is expecting output to reach 3.15-million barrels a day by June after the end of a workers strike," ANZ bank said.

Iran wants to get back to pre-sanction production of 4-million barrels a day.

"The biggest bear risk to the oil market right now is that Iran’s ramp-up accelerates and then that Saudi Arabia does the same," Citi said.

"If anyone had a doubt about Saudi Aramco’s ability to use its logistical system and spot sales to increase market share, its recent 730 000 barrel sale of a cargo to a Chinese teapot refiner in Shandong should lay any doubts to rest," it added.

The cargo would be lifted in June from Aramco’s storage in Japan’s Okinawa prefec-ture and shipped to China’s eastern province of Shan-dong, Reuters reported on Monday.

Citi said it was likely that Saudi Arabia was targeting a 500 000 barrels a day in sales to bring its production up to 11-million barrels a day or higher.

Traders said that a loom-ing petrol glut in Asia also threatened the recent rise in prices as refiners flooded the market with unwanted prod-ucts.-Reuters●

iNTERNATioNAl NEws 21

Oil rises as new cash floods into market

By simon Allison

Mozambique has spent much of the last decade borrowing against its future. The debts are now coming due, but the natural gas that was sup-posed to pay for the multi-bill ion dollar loans is yet to come online. Has the coun-try, through its dodgy tuna bonds, over-extended itself ? By SIMON ALLISON.

In the eyes of foreign inves-tors, and its own politicians, Mozambique stopped being a poor country sometime in the late 2000s – even though little had changed for the bulk of its poverty-stricken citizens.

It was around then that word of a massive offshore gas deposit began to spread, and in 2011 it became official: Mozambique was sitting on a natural gas bonanza that could radically transform the lives of its population.

It didn’t matter that it would take close to a decade to

set up the infrastructure to exploit the deposit. Mozam-bique could start making money instantly.

By using its newfound nat-ural resources as implied collateral, Mozambique started taking on massive, multibill ion dollar loans from investors who were suddenly eager to speculate – espe-

cially with the generous returns on offer. The money taps opened, and foreign currency sloshed into the country.

A graph of Mozambique’s debt-to-GDP ratio over the last 10 years tells the story. Flatlining since 2005 at an average of about 22 percent, in 2008 it angles up sharply

as the government takes on more and more debt. As of earlier this year, Mozambique owed the equivalent of 58,3 percent of its GDP in debt.

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Some of the most prosperous countries in the world are heavily indebted (for example, the United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio is

22 analysis22 ANAlysis

Has Mozambique already squandered its natural gas bonanza?

73,6 percent; South Africa’s is 45,4 percent).

If debt is used wisely, to fund government services and infrastructure and to kickstart a struggling economy, then a large debt burden can be a sound policy option.

This, then, is a question for Mozambique: have these borrowed bill ions been used wisely? And can they really be repaid?

The scandal surrounding the so-called “tuna bond” suggests not. In 2013, Mozambique secured about $850-million from foreign investors to help turn around the struggling tuna industry, even though the revenue forecasts were wildly opti-mistic. If this sounds fishy – well, it is.

“The deal immediately raised eyebrows, with donors asking questions about why a coun-try with significant devel-opment challenges would

raise its debt profile to this extent just for fishing boats. The critics of the deal were proved right when it later emerged that most of the money was, in fact, spent on security,” explained Dianna Games in Business Day.

With natural gas stil l several years away from generat-ing income, Mozambique is struggling to repay the money, and Mozambique has been forced to renegotiate with its debtors, striking a deal that will give it longer to pay, but at even better returns for investors. In the end, the taxpayer loses – and the tuna industry is stil l in the doldrums. The money that must be repaid has already been frittered away on navy boats to keep the generals happy.

Compounding Mozambique’s cash flow crisis is a swiftly depreciating currency, which makes all its debts even more expensive to service, and low prices on coal, its other major export.

This has forced the Inter-national Monetary Fund to intervene, at the govern-ment’s request, and led to a downgrade from ratings agencies. Suddenly, Mozam-bique isn’t looking quite so attractive to investors.

It doesn’t help that in the years since the discovery of natural gas in Mozambique, the price of the commodity has dropped dramatically, and new players – such as Iran – are getting involved in the market.

In 2011, Mozambique thought it had won the lottery; unfortunately, the winnings are going to be a lot smaller than anticipated, making it even harder to pay off all those loans.

“Industry observers say the start date of 2020 for exports, which has already been delayed from a 2018 start, may be pushed out further due to the decline in commodity prices and demand,” said Games.

And then, this week, another bombshell: after media reports exposed the cov-er-up, the government confirmed that it had been hiding even more debt, to the tune of $1,35-bill ion.

Like a shopping addict hoard-ing credit cards, Mozambique has been borrowing money in secret. Mozambique’s discovery of natural gas was meant to usher in a new era of prosperity for the country.

And while GDP growth has been impressive over the last few years, it has been fuelled by a massive amount of bor-rowed money – not all which has been spent wisely.

The dodgy tuna bond, and the hidden debt, suggests a government living well above its means, treating loans like free money. But money is never free, and it is ordi-nary Mozambicans who will ultimately pay the price.-The daily Maverick●

23 analysis23 ANAlysis