The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) said Wednesday it will dispose of its majority shareholding in the country's sole gold buyer, the Fidelity Printers and Refiners (Private) Limited (FPR) as part of the partial privatization of the company.

FPR will thus be unbundled into two business entities, "gold refining" and "printing and minting", the RBZ governor John Mangudya said in a statement.

The unbundling of FPR is designed to partially privatize the gold refining business by allowing private players to acquire a stake therein, Mangudya said, adding the RBZ will continue to have 100 percent equity in the printing and minting business for national security reasons.

Mangudya said by being part of the decision making process on gold trading, it is expected that the gold producers' compliance levels in the trading of gold will significantly increase.

Accordingly, the RBZ will retain 40 percent shareholding in FPR and dispose of 60 percent shareholding to both the large-scale and small-scale gold producers, Mangudya said.

He said the RBZ will offer 50 percent shareholding in FPR to the large scale gold producers, 3 percent to major FPR gold buying agents and the balance of 7 percent to the small scale producers through their representative bodies.