Foreign companies in Zimbabwe will not be seized but bought out under a black economic empowerment scheme sponsored by President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, a government minister said on Thursday.

However, destitute Zimbabwe, the world's second-largest platinum producer, does not have enough money to purchase majority stakes in the foreign firms and could be trying to ease the concerns of overseas investors, analysts said.

No elephant in the room
Speaking at the launch of a five-year economic development plan, Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Minister Tapiwa Mashakada said the drive would take time and would not destroy the country's fragile economy.

"Indigenisation and empowerment need not be the elephant in the room," said Mashakada, a senior member of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) which joined ZANU-PF in a unity government over two years ago.

"It is there to make sure the majority of our people are broadly empowered. The 51 percent is not going to be expropriated. It's going to be funded and there's going to be a time frame for that," he said.

51% black
Mugabe, 87 and in power since Zimbabwe's since independence from Britain in 1980, signed the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act in 2008, which forces foreign-owned companies worth over $500,000 to achieve at least 51 percent black ownership within five years.

Analysts say Mugabe's drive targeting firms in all sectors, including banking and mining, is scaring potential investors in the resource-rich southern African country struggling to recover from a decade-long recession many blame on ZANU-PF policies.

Mugabe's seizures of white-owned commercial farms about a decade ago under the banner of correcting colonial injustices sparked a loss of overseas confidence in investing in the state and an economic downfall.

The government has threatened to start the plan by taking over 51 percent stakes in foreign mines from September.

source: Reuters