via Zimbabwe Manufacturers Ask Government to Cut Taxes, Mint Coins – Bloomberg By Godfrey Marawanyika
Zimbabwe’s manufacturers asked the government to cut taxes and mint coins to boost demand for local goods, stimulate the economy and help reduce the perception of risk in the economy.
Local currency coins, paired with the current multi-currency system, would boost local trade, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries said in a letter to the government obtained by Bloomberg News. The government should also cut income and value-added taxes to promote spending and boost production, the Harare-based group said.
“Currently the high cost of production is rendering local goods uncompetitive,” the group said. “There is need to stimulate consumption in the local market.”
Zimbabwe needs to manage perceptions of political risk to businesses and restore confidence in the financial markets to extend four years of economic growth after President Robert Mugabe was re-elected on July 31. Mugabe plans to seize control of foreign-owned mines without paying for them and pay for stakes in banks as part of a program to accumulate $7 billion in assets for blacks, Saviour Kasukuwere, the minister in charge of the program said on Aug. 6. The stock market has plunged 21 percent since the polls, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Since disputed elections in 2008, the government dropped the Zimbabwean dollar for the rand and U.S. dollar in 2009 to help quell inflation that soared to an estimated 500 billion percent. There is often a shortage of smaller-denomination bills in the foreign currencies, making it harder to do business. The economy shrunk 39 percent in the eight years through 2008 after Mugabe began a campaign to seize white-owned farms to redistribute to black subsistence farmers.
COMMENTS
“accumulate $7 billion in assets for blacks” … WHICH BLACKS !!!
THE MODERNISING AFFLUENT BLACK ELITE AND NO THE BLACK EFFLUENT!
DR ZEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUST RUBBING HIS HANDS …! THE PRINTING PRESS IS BEING OILED!
I dont think really business people could be calling for the return of the Zimdollar so soon. If they are business people then it could be those uneducated without economic fundamentals in their minds hence they want the Zimdollar. It is not the type of money that makes profits but it is the way you approach the markets that brings them. The competitiveness of the goods you produce and othere factors will make your company seee profits. Before asking for the return of the Zimdollar people must first interogate the realities that led to its demise, it had metted enough suffering to the people, some people lost the whole lot of their pension incomes and they today live as if they never worked. After all the coming back of a national currency must be put in a referendum so that people decide on their own. We r tired of reckless economic rhetoric which has cost us lives.
What is in money that people are so much in haste to bring back the Zimdollar. What I know about money is that it is anything that we can put value on and use a medium of exchange. Long ago when butter trade was common the most common goods were used for butter trade eg maize, cattle, labour etc the underlining factor was it had to be of value to the buyer as well as the saler. The overall value was the negotiated within the market.
Increasing the salaries of workers and thus enabling them to have a space to have extra income to use is the other way companies could see profits, in addition economies of scale and finding extra markets for their goods could also solve their problems.
I want to end by saying they untimely introduction of the Zimdollar will certainly mark the demise of Zanu pf. The people will sufer because of hyperinflation and they will see reason to have voted the Mdc and this will be the fall of the giant.
Cureent industry has no capacity even to produce for a small densely populated village in the rural areas. This economy has to be attended to before useless thoughts of the return of the Zimdollar can be entertained.
At least tmro is a holiday
Banks will close, Zupco will be free ride and Gono and Saviour will be at the national sports discussing business. It would have been Dr Gonno’s wish to loose election than go into minting n printing again. He cant imagine inflation again, at least only in Zim do we see lawyers (minister Biti) doing better than financiers/bankers (Dr. GG)
Dr GG gives advise to pliz CZI, His Excellency (in view of sales from diary farm) and Chinoz for indigenisation and expropriation. Welcome to five years of torrid time Gideon. You cant ran away into dispora because you know too much and you assets will be attached.
Its a long five years for you
Beware the “Night of the Long Knives” is around the corner, Nazi style.
If you are one of the foreign controlled manufacturers you better start relocating your operations to a normal country. Alternatively what you need is not ZIM coins but modern macro economic gvt policies but with the likes of Kasukuwere you can forget anything positive to happen. Join ZANU (Pasina Fundo) and grab the bank shares for free!!!!