ZIMBABWE, banking on mining to end two decades of economic stagnation, plans to list Kuvimba, the company in which it has placed state mining assets, to raise cash to meet government obligations. Late last year, the government created Kuvimba Mining House, in which the State pension fund and sovereign wealth fund hold 65% shareholding, to house its holdings in platinum, gold and nickel. “In the next two years, it will be a highly profitable group,” Finance minister Mthuli Ncube said in an interview. “When we eventually list, government will offload some of its shareholding.” The creation of Kuvimba is the latest attempt by the government to kickstart its mining industry. While companies were deterred by local ownership requirements and a frequently changing currency regime, investors from Russia, Cyprus and Nigeria are now exploring having platinum mines in Zimbabwe, which has the world’s third-biggest reserves of the metal. In addition to partnering Russian investors in a platinum venture, Kuvimba plans to rehabilitate aging mines and develop new ones. The company will likely be listed on the dollar-denominated stock exchange that was established in the resort town of Victoria Falls last year, Ncube said. The rest of the company is owned by a consortium headed by David Brown, the former chief executive officer of South Africa’s Impala Platinum Holdings, he said, without giving details about the arrangement. “We are looking for international skills, skills with a track record and he has a track record,” Ncube said. Money from Kuvimba will be used to back entrepreneurs, compensate people who lost the value of their bank deposits when the local currency crashed, bolster funding for veterans of the 1970s liberation war and provide seed capital for a new government workers’ pension fund, he said. It will also be used to compensate white former farmers. Zimbabwe’s initial refusal to compensate white farmers soured Zimbabwe’s relations with multilateral lenders and the West. Now the country plans to appoint advisers to help it raise the US$3,5 billion it has agreed to pay. “With Kuvimba, the government has put something on the table, it has skin in the game,” Ncube said. “Everything now hinges on concluding the appointment of the adviser and then the work of fund raising will begin in earnest.”— Bloomberg