20110515
reuters

Zimbabwe's central bank said it planned to take punitive measures against foreign-owned banks that resist demands to transfer majority shareholding to local blacks under a controversial empowerment policy.

President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF is pushing plans to force all foreign companies to cede controlling stakes to blacks, a policy which his rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has denounced as "looting and plunder" by a greedy elite.

Analysts say the move is likely to discourage foreign investment in the recovering economy.

In an interview with the official Sunday Mail newspaper, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor Gideon Gono said the government was in consultation on how to handle the empowerment programme for the financial sector.

Gono did not say whether foreign banks had submitted plans to comply with empowerment laws but urged them to do so.

Gono was unavailable for comment on Sunday. He gave no details of timeframes or what the RBZ's punitive measures would be, but appeared to suggest licences could be withdrawn.

LICENCES

"In my next monetary statement (expected in July), I will announce punitive measures we will be taking as a central bank against those banks showing signs of reluctance to comply.