Deadline for Zimbabwe’s controversial corporate indigenization plan passes

• President Robert Mugabe has pushed a contentious plan to have all companies operating in Zimbabwe—including major multinational corporations—comply with a 2008 law to transfer majority shares to black Zimbabweans to “indigenize” their local firms.
• The plan was conceived as a corrective to colonial-era economic exclusion and is a follow-up to the ongoing land reform program that has transferred farm ownership from white to black Zimbabweans.
• It is unclear how many companies, faced with the revocation of their operating licenses, have complied to date, and many concerned that the program discourages foreign direct investment.

Read more:
“Zimbabwe deadline for firms to be black-owned passes” (BBC)
“Zimbabwe says foreign banks, miners fail to comply on selling stakes to locals” (Reuters)
“Zimbabwe: Diamond firms comply with indigenization law” (Deutsche Welle)