A New City Aims to Boost Zimbabwe’s Development

(Xinhua/Tafara Mug­wara) China

A bill­board show­ing a mas­ter plan of a new infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment named “Cyber City” is seen at the road­side in Mount Ham­p­den, Mashona­land West Province, Zim­bab­we, on July 20, 2022.

At the 77^th ses­sion of the Unit­ed Nations Gen­er­al Assem­bly, African lead­ers called for the West to ease sanc­tions on Zim­bab­we. Recent­ly the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca sanc­tioned 56 com­pa­nies and 85 indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing cur­rent Pres­i­dent Emer­son Mnangagwa.

Locals in the coun­try say the sanc­tions play a role in Zim­bab­we’s eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment as indus­tries have shut down oper­a­tions. Many say the sanc­tions are to blame for the coun­try’s slow eco­nom­ic growth. Due to the sanc­tions, Zim­bab­we is seen as unsuit­able for invest­ment. How­ev­er, the Euro­pean Union main­tains that the country’s eco­nom­ic woes are not a result of sanctions. 

For now, the cri­sis con­tin­ues and the cit­i­zens of Zim­bab­we con­tin­ue to face eco­nom­ic hardships.

Zim City and Economic Development

Con­structAfrica

A view of the pro­posed Zim Cyber City, cour­tesy of Con­struct Africa

Zim­bab­we has how­ev­er con­tin­ued its ambi­tious plans for devel­op­ment. It has tasked Mulk Inter­na­tion­al, a Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) con­glom­er­ate to build a $500 mil­lion Cyber City which is viewed as the “New Harare”, Zimbabwe’s cap­i­tal city.

The 2.5 mil­lion square meters city is fund­ed and con­struct­ed by Mulk inter­na­tion­al and will have facil­i­ties like malls, res­i­den­tial spaces, and the tallest tow­ers in Africa. The city is aimed at decon­gest­ing Harare. In the new city, a par­lia­ment build­ing was con­struct­ed with ful­ly fund­ing from Chi­na Aid, a Chi­nese gov­ern­ment initiative.

The city named Zim Cyber City will aid Zim­bab­we to catch up with the world as it will encom­pass the lat­est infor­ma­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies to man­age its business.

The rela­tion­ship between UAE and Zim­bab­we could be enhanced as they col­lab­o­rate in this mon­u­men­tal con­struc­tion. The ambi­tions also include inte­grat­ing blockchain technology. 

Nev­er­the­less, there are seri­ous ques­tions being asked about the city. Reports sug­gest that the deal comes at a cost for the investors. The investors may have to employ for­eign staff, get tax breaks, and repa­tri­ate some of their prof­its.  It would be hard to ignore tax breaks already being giv­en to Chi­nese com­pa­nies such as Huawei and ZTE. 

What’s more, the Cyber City, when com­plet­ed may only be afford­able to the rich.