Zimbabwe’s Mugabe set to meet top China leaders

BEIJING (Reuters) – Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe will
meet top Chinese leaders during a six-day visit, the People’s
Daily said on Sunday, amid efforts to secure alternative credit
lines as western nations snub the southern African nation.

Mugabe, whose government critics blame for a crippling
economic crisis, would meet Chinese President Hu Jintao, number
two in the Communist hierarchy Wu Bangguo and Premier Wen
Jiabao, the paper said. It did not say what would be discussed.

The Zimbabwe president would also visit Changchun, the
capital of northeastern Jilin province, it said.

Mugabe, who arrived in Beijing on Saturday, is accompanied
by his central bank head and senior government ministers,
according to Zimbabwe state media.

The visit comes days after Mugabe’s spokesman said the
government was exploring alternative lines of credit with
countries such as China and Malaysia as it grapples with
Zimbabwe’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Unemployment is above 70 percent, inflation is in triple
digits and there are acute shortages of foreign currency, food
and fuel.

South African newspapers have reported that Zimbabwe –
saddled with around $4.5 billion in foreign debt — was seeking
a $1 billion loan from its neighbor.

Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba told Reuters on Friday
Zimbabwe had also approached India, China and Iran for
financial help with infrastructure and energy projects.

On the day Mugabe left Harare, the United Nations released
a damning report on his government’s controversial demolitions
of urban slums, which the global body said had left some
700,000 people without homes or livelihoods and affected
another 2.4 million.

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980,
denies critics’ accusations his government’s policies,
including the forcible redistribution of white-owned commercial
farms to blacks, have destroyed a once-booming economy.

He says former colonial power Britain has led domestic and
foreign opponents of his land reforms in sabotaging Zimbabwe’s
economy, which has contracted by more than 30 percent since
1999.