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HARARE - Zimbabwe's Parliament has passed a bill giving local owners majority control of foreign-owned companies, including mines and banks, a move analysts say could drive the fragile economy deeper into crisis.
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party pushed through the bill after members of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change walked out in protest.
Mugabe's Government, which critics accuse of plunging Zimbabwe into turmoil by seizing white-owned farms and handing them to inexperienced black farmers, says the bill is part of its drive to empower the country's poor majority.
Analysts fear the move could sound the death knell for an economy that has also suffered from foreign investor flight over fears about the security of their investment.
MDC legislators argued the law was designed to enrich a few powerful individuals and win votes for Mugabe's party in parliamentary and presidential elections due next March.
Zimbabwe is in the throes of deep economic crisis, marked by the world's highest inflation rate, above 6600 per cent.
Four out of five adults in the country are out of work, and there are shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency.
- Reuters
