THE new United States ambassador to Zimbabwe, Pamela Tremont, yesterday said she will focus on improving the country's investment climate during her tenure to expand economic opportunities for the Southern African nation.
Tremont presented her credentials to President Emmerson Mnangagwa this week, officially assuming her role two years after her nomination by President Joe Biden. She replaces Brian Andrew Nichols.
Speaking to reporters in Harare yesterday, Tremont emphasized that broad-based economic prosperity would be unattainable without strong democratic institutions.
“I think working on the investment climate could be a low-hanging fruit,” she said, a day after meeting Mnangagwa.
“There are easy things too, like reducing the amount of bureaucracy that businesses have to go through to register a business and operate in this country.
“Some regulatory certainty would make it a lot easier. We have been talking to US banks and financial institutions and asking them why they don't return to the Zimbabwean market,” Tremont noted.
She added that her office would continue engaging US banks to come to Zimbabwe, aiming to strengthen ties between Harare and Washington.
Discussing the African Development Bank (AfDB)-led negotiations on Zimbabwe’s debt, Tremont highlighted the importance of the process as a platform for discussing necessary reforms for Zimbabwe to obtain concessionary loans.
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“We think the AfDB process is a really useful forum to discuss the kind of reforms that the international financial institutions need for Zimbabwe to access the concessionary loans that it wants,” she said.
“We were an active participant in those talks. Unfortunately, we had to put a pause on that after the elections that we did not find free and fair, and a lot of other institutions did not find free and fair.
“We are looking forward to new democracy and governance indicators that will give us a sense of where the government is and its democracy and governance pathway, so that we can return to the table and continue those talks,” Tremont added.
The ambassador announced that the US will be donating US$62 million towards drought relief to Zimbabwe.
