Trading on Zimbabwe's stock exchange has plummeted from a daily average of US$2 million to US$500 000, since a controversial empowerment law was published. Emmanuel Munyukwi, the chief executive of the stock exchange, confirmed the development to the South African Mail and Guardian newspaper.

Mugabe's party railroaded the Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Bill into law, despite fierce resistance from their MDC coalition partners. The law requires all foreign investors to cede 51 percent of their investment to 'indigenous' people. It was passed through parliament in 2007 when ZANU PF still had a majority in parliament and ran government alone.

The regulations were deliberately 'smuggled' into law on Monday this week despite the formation of a coalition government, almost 3 years after the bill originally sailed through parliament. Already the stock exchange has seen 10 straight days of losses. Nervous investors are now shunning the stock exchange and this prompted Youth and Empowerment Minister Savior Kasukuwere to meet officials there to discuss possible temporary reprieves.

Industry and Trade Minister Welshman Ncube however said Kasukuwere had prematurely published the regulations when they were still before the Cabinet Committee on Legislation. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was meant to chair a Council of Ministers meeting on Thursday to discuss the controversial law but no details of that were released. Kasukuwere however remained adamant there would be 'no going back' on the law.

Writing in his weekly column for the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, economic analyst Eric Bloch said; 'After only three weeks, it is irrefutably evident that the ill effects of the regulations upon the economy are monolithic in extent, and are set to bring the near-total demise of an economy which had begun to recover from decades of gross mismanagement and abuse.'

Bloch argued that with 'lighting speed' government had destroyed foreign investor confidence, frozen all lines of credit, intensified Zimbabwe's isolation and motivated many companies to reconsider their operations in the country. This he said would add to unemployment and exacerbate the poverty, misery, suffering and malnutrition of the majority of the population.

Blogger Freeman Chari weighed in with his views arguing, 'If ZANU PF is serious about black empowerment I challenge it to walk the talk and begin by accepting that most of the damage to black entrepreneurship in the past 30 years was due to its bad governance and impunity. After that we share its proceeds of corruption and plunder before we demand the 51% from foreigners!'