Food giant Nestle has resumed operations in Zimbabwe after it shut down its factory over a dispute on buying milk from President Robert Mugabe's family farm, the company said Tuesday.
   

"It has been reopened with the assurances from the ministry of trade and industry that there wouldn't be any issues that constrained business operations in the country," Nestle's South Africa spokesman Ravi Pillay told AFP. Work officially resumed on December 31, said Pillay.
   

Nestle shut down its Harare factory last month, two days after staff were forced to take milk from "non-contracted suppliers", after the company in October said it would no longer buy milk from a farm owned by Mugabe's family.
   

The company cited operational and worker safety concerns after Zimbabwean government officials and police made an "unannounced visit" to the Harare plant last month in which two Nestle Zimbabwe managers were questioned by police.
   

The company stopped buying milk in October from the farm owned by Mugabe's family, who seized it from white farmers under his controversial land reforms, which has been touted in state media as a success.
   

The land reforms began in 2000 but were marred by widespread political violence, devastating the economy as farm yields plunged and leaving Zimbabwe dependent on international food aid.

Source: AFP