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* Finance minister says comfortable with foreign bankownership
* President Mugabe has focused on black economic empowermentdrive
* Economy facing severe liquidity problems
HARARE, April 23 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe will let foreignerskeep majority stakes in banks for now because locals have nomoney to buy shares, the finance minister said on Wednesday,signalling a pause in President Robert Mugabe's black economicempowerment drive.
But Patrick Chinamasa said the government would not amend onplans to force foreign mining companies to sell at least 51percent of their local holdings to Zimbabweans under theempowerment programme, known locally as indigenisation.
The southern African country, which ditched itshyper-inflated local currency in 2009, is facing a seriousdollar crunch as a result of lack of foreign donor support andinvestment, and some smaller local banks are struggling to stayafloat.
The law obliging foreign-owned firms, including mines andbanks, to sell at least 51 percent of their stakes to blacks waspassed as long ago as 2008.
During campaigning for last July's election, which he won ina landslide, Mugabe promised to enforce it under the empowermentbanner.
Chinamasa said that, with severe liquidity shortages in theeconomy, foreign banks had the capacity to negotiate lines ofcredit required to revive local industries and agriculture.
"I am quite comfortable with foreign ownership in the banksbecause at this time our people have no capacity to buy equity,"Chinamasa told Reuters.
"But it is temporary and we are not looking for a'one-size-fits-all' approach."
Foreign banks active in Zimbabwe include units of BarclaysPlc and Standard Chartered Plc as well asSouth Africa's Standard Bank and Nedbank. Nonehave made investments in the country's locally-owned banks.
Chinamasa said Indigenisation and Economic EmpowermentMinister Francis Nhema would present the cabinet with plansdefining thresholds and timelines for foreign-owned companies tocomply with the empowerment law.
Chinamasa declined to say if the ownership law would beamended but said the rules for the mining sector would remainunchanged.
"We have been very clear on the mining sector that this isour resource and our people have to benefit by being majorshareholders," he said.
Nhema told Reuters in an interview in November that Zimbabwewould not soften its drive to force foreign-owned mines to sellmajority stakes to blacks, although he signalled flexibilitywith banks if they agreed to lend more. (Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by John Stonestreet)
