Zimbabwe's Finance Minister to Announce 2011 Budget Next Week

Finance Minister, Tendai Biti will announce his 2011 National Budget on Thursday next week despite limited fiscal space due to lack of significant lines of credit.

Minister Biti is expected to come up with measures to unlock internal resources to finance the 2011 budget to reduce over reliance on foreign funding, which Government has no control over.

The country has suffered from lack of foreign direct investment and a serious debt over hang of more than US$6 billion that has made it difficult to source fresh capital.

In his 2010 National Budget, Minister Biti had estimated a vote of credit of about US$810 million which was later revised downwards to less than US$500 million.

Minister Biti had budgeted US$2,5 billion and predicted an 11 percent deficit for the current year and for 2011, he is likely to reduce to about US$2 billion as Government embraces the performance-based budget

The 2011 National Budget comes on the back of nationwide consultations by the minister after industry and civil society complained that the he was not consulting them.

* All Africa