President Emmerson Mnangagwa has dismissed reports that the government of Zimbabwe ever asked for a US$2 billion bailout package from China.
Mnangagwa met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in September last year on the sidelines of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (Focac) in Beijing. While addressing the media at State House on Wednesday night, Mnangagwa said:
I have never asked for a bailout package. I read it in the newspapers. We want investments, not a bailout package. We need investments where it is a win-win situation.
Investors come and put their money and make profits while we have development in the country. So we never asked for a bailout package.
So we never asked for a bailout package from China, but we sought investments and we have succeeded in that regard.
Mnangagwa toured Eurasia in January where he sought for Foreign Direct Investment from four Former Soviet Socialist Republics, namely Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.