HARARE, April 2 (Reuters) - Foreign banks operating inZimbabwe have submitted credible plans on how they intend totransfer majority shares to locals, the country's financeminister said on Saturday, reducing the chances the governmentcould cancel their licences.
Under an Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act allforeign companies operating in Zimbabwe were given a March 31deadline to sell at least 51 percent of their holdings or havetheir licences cancelled, part of President Robert Mugabe'sblack empowerment drive.
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said empowerment plansfrom Barclays Plc, Standard Chartered Plc, OldMutual Plc and its two banking subsidiaries as well asSouth Africa's Standard Bank and African banking groupEcobank were consistent with the law.
"I am pleased to advise that all the affected foreign-ownedfinancial institutions operating in Zimbabwe have submittedcredible indeginisation plans before the deadline of the 31stMarch 2016," Chinamasa said in a statement.
Chinamasa is leading efforts to end Zimbabwe's isolationfrom the West and trying to woo the International Monetary Fund,which has previously said the government should ease up itseconomic empowerment law to attract investment.
His comments come two days after another cabinet ministersaid most foreign banks and mining companies in Zimbabwe had notcomplied with Thursday's deadline to transfer majority shares tolocals.
Under the empowerment rules, foreign-owned financialservices companies will have to sell at least 20 percent ofshares directly to locals, while empowerment credits, such asfunding for agriculture and youth and women programmes, make upthe balance.
Mugabe's black economic empowerment drive has unsettledforeign investors, some of whom fear that Harare could grabtheir assets in the same way that the government has seized morethan 6,000 farms from white commercial farmers since 2000. (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe. Editing by Jane Merriman)