S.AFRICA'S ZIMBABWE TIES 'STRONG' !

By Peter Biles BBC News Southern Africa correspondent, Johannesburg.

Despite economic woes, there is still money to be made in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's trade and investment ties with neighbouring South Africa remain very strong, a report has found. The study also says some South African businesses have been exploiting opportunities thrown up by the Zimbabwe economic crisis.

Zimbabwe is South Africa's main African trading partner, said Solidarity Peace Trust, a church-based organisation. It says South African firms believe Zimbabwe is a better place to do business than other African countries. And that these companies have found ways to negotiate Zimbabwe's largely dysfunctional economy.

As a result, the South African firms operating in Zimbabwe are making good profits, even if these are undermined by inflation, the report adds. It also found that there is a belief in South Africa that economic recovery in the post-Mugabe era will be swift. Yet big South African companies are said not to be panicking about the Zimbabwean government's indigenisation policy, which seeks to give Zimbabweans a majority shareholding in foreign-owned businesses.

The report concludes that South Africa has seized new opportunities from Zimbabwe's decline, and has also gained from the influx of Zimbabwean skills - doctors, nurses, engineers and teachers who've made a move to South Africa.

BBC NEWS REPORT.