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ZIMBABWE has ordered foreign mining firms to deposit their export earnings with local banks, state media reported on Sunday, the latest government move to exert pressure on miners as it tries to address the dollar crunch afflicting its economy.

Mines Minister Obert Mpofu told the Sunday Mail that cabinet last week had decided to tell mining companies to bring back earnings from their Zimbabwe operations which were deposited in offshore accounts.

Henan Hongxing Mining Machinery Co., Ltd is a joint-stock mining machinery manufacturing enterprise integrated in scientific research, production and marketing. It is located at the High & New Technology Industries Development Zone of Zhengzhou,China with an area of 50 thousand m2 which includes 15,000 m2 of standard heavy duty industrial workshop. Equipments are more than 160 pieces, including large and medium sized metal processing, riveting and installing equipments. There are more than 660 workers including 80 administrators with secondary and senior occupational titles and engineering technicians. In order to promote the competitive strength, the advanced technologies have been introduced from America, Germany, Japan and Australia, which established the international advanced production line, first-class modern testing base as well as research centers of sand maker, mill and mine-selecting equipment. Scientific management, advanced processing technology and innovative manufacturing theory make the company become the mining machinery manufacturing and exporting base in China.

'We have been liberal. It does not make sense that mining companies are operating in the country and keeping money in offshore accounts,' Mpofu told the Mail.

'An order has been issued and they should all bring the money back into the country because the economy is now dollarised.'

Zimbabwe's unity government has managed to stabilise the economy, which grew by 9.3% in 2011 and is set to grow by a further 9.4% this year according to official figures, but the country is battling an acute dollar shortage.

Zimbabwe adopted the use of foreign currencies, mostly the US dollar and South African rand in 2009, after its own unit was destroyed by hyperinflation that reached 500 billion percent in December 2008.

Foreign miners operating in the country have also come under increasing pressure from the Zimbabwean government to turn majority shareholdings over to local black businesses under the country's controversial empowerment law.

Last week, Impala Platinum, the world's second-biggest platinum producer, bowed to pressure and said it would surrender a 51 percent stake in its Zimplats unit to local black investors.

The world's largest platinum producer, Anglo American Platinum, and Rio Tinto, which runs a diamond mine, are some of the major international firms operating in Zimbabwe.

SHUTDOWN

Long-ruling President Robert Mugabe, who was forced to share power with his rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai three years ago after disputed elections, is championing the empowerment drive, which has sharply divided the coalition government.

Tsvangirai has said the empowerment crusade is undermining the recovery of an economy whose decline by as much as 50% between 2000 and 2008 is blamed on Mugabe's policies such as seizure of white-owned commercial farms to resettle landless blacks.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti last week warned the government faces a shutdown if projected diamond revenues do not materialise.

The government expects $600m revenue from diamonds to bolster its $4bn 2012 budget.