Business Day<\/a>, McCormick said MPD will lead the property development, while Exemplar will assist with leasing.<\/p>\nHe believes that Zimbabwe\u2019s true level of economic activity is not fully captured in official figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot happening economically in Zimbabwe that simply doesn\u2019t show up in the formal GDP numbers,\u201d McCormick said.<\/p>\n
A familiar risk for an experienced developer<\/p>\n
Founded in 1983, MPD has built its reputation by developing retail centres in previously under-served areas across South Africa, particularly townships.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs developers of township retail in South Africa for the last 45 years, we\u2019ve always gone where angels fear to tread,\u201d McCormick said. \u201cSo I\u2019d say we\u2019re no more fearful of Zimbabwe.\u201d<\/p>\n
That experience, he said, gives the company confidence to invest in markets others may overlook.<\/p>\n
McCormick secured the land over a decade ago<\/p>\n
MPD acquired the land earmarked for the Mall of Zimbabwe around 12 years ago, choosing to wait until conditions aligned with its long-term strategy.<\/p>\n
McCormick said the current environment mirrors the debates around South Africa\u2019s township economies, which often outperform what official statistics suggest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt in our minds that the time is now right,\u201d he said. \u201cIn much the same way that formal economic figures in our townships don\u2019t tell the full story, I think the same applies to Zimbabwe\u2019s GDP.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why McCormick sees value in building in Zimbabwe<\/p>\n
McCormick also pointed to cost advantages as a key factor behind the investment, saying it is cheaper to build in Zimbabwe than in South Africa. <\/p>\n
Lower development costs, combined with strong informal economic activity, make the project commercially attractive.<\/p>\n
Once completed, the Mall of Zimbabwe is expected to add a major retail hub to Harare\u2019s landscape and signal renewed investor interest in the country\u2019s property sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McCormick Property Development (MPD) is making a bold move into Zimbabwe\u2019s retail sector with plans to build a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[305,306,12823,131,106],"class_list":{"0":"post-20590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-zimbabwe","8":"tag-featured","9":"tag-important","10":"tag-property-development","11":"tag-south-africa","12":"tag-zimbabwe"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}