Zimbabwe will publish guidelines this month on local ownership of various types of companies, ending months of uncertainty that has weighed on the stock market, a government minister said on Thursday.
The southern African nation introduced a law early this year saying 51 percent of firms worth over $500,000 should be owned by black Zimbabweans but accepted that most sectors, especially the capital-intensive mining industry, will take time to get there.

Fourteen committees set up to determine minimum initial local ownership thresholds for various sectors had now finished their work, Saviour Kasukuwere, Minister of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment said.

"We will review them and publish them before the end of the month," he told Reuters on the sidelines of an investment conference in South Africa's commercial capital.

"We are moving. We need to bring about certainty. We can't keep people hanging there."

This year, Zimbabwe's stock market has failed to build on the strong gains it posted immediately after the government scrapped the worthless Zimbabwean dollar in favour of U.S. dollars in February 2009.

The lacklustre performance -- in contrast to other frontier African equity markets -- has been widely blamed on concerns the indigenisation act.