Lifeline for Zim from UAE

FROM GOLD TO REAL ESTATE: GULF STATE'S INFLUENCE IN THE COUNTRY IS EXPANDING

- Ray Ndlovu and Abeer Abu Omar

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa's six years of wooing the United Arab Emirates has given a lifeline to a nation that the West has ostracized for a quarter century and is unable to repay its loans to China.

The wealthy Gulf state has overtaken China to become the resource-rich nation's biggest export partner and since 2022 has ploughed $1.4 billion into everything from gold trading to real estate.

This is part of a wider effort by the UAE to build influence across Africa that's seen it routinely pledge the most foreign direct investment into the continent.

"The UAE has gone within a few years from being unknown in commerce to the nation's foremost trading partner," said Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at the University of Zimbabwe.