Source: ZimTrade to equip firms with export skills | The Herald September 28, 2016
Business Reporter
ZimTrade will this week conduct a capacity building training of companies in the plastic pipes manufacturing and packaging industries. The training, which will be held from September 29-30 in Harare is part of ZimTrade’s Capacity Building interventions, under the Marketing and Branding for International Competitiveness (MBIC) training programme, is aimed at nurturing local enterprises into viable export entities.According to Trade Map, in 2015, the local plastic pipes industry recorded exports worth $361 000. However, the regional demand during the same period was generally high with Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana having recorded imports valued at $18,1 million, $25,1 million and $16,1 million, respectively.
On the other hand, the packaging sector plays an integral part in the export value chain. Capacitation of this sector is expected to have positive downstream effects on Zimbabwean exporters who are the end-users of the packaging products.
According to Dr Jacky Charbonneau, an international packaging consultant, packaging is a key source of competitiveness on the global market.
It is imperative for exporters and their suppliers to ensure that products are packaged to meet the necessary minimum regulatory and compliance requirements.
“If the packaging is not up to standards, no matter how good the product is, it is difficult to compete. Packaging must also ensure an optimum protection, preservation of the product all the way to its final destinations well as help sell the product”, he added.
The regional demand for both the plastic pipes and packaging products presents a huge opportunity to our local players. It is, therefore, important for our companies to scale up their international competitiveness in order to tap into this export market.
The MBIC programme was conceived as the first building block of ZimTrade’s future Vocational Training and Advisory portfolio. It was designed to be the first pillar of a series of vocational training modules dedicated to enterprise export competitiveness.
COMMENTS
The problems with exporting are not in the area of marketing, packaging and the like. It is not attractive to export from Zimbabwe because of government restrictions and procedures, corruption of officials and government incompetence. Add to this the fact that Zimbabwe is not an attractive place to run a business and the very difficult labour laws make achieving any kind of productivity a very high mountain to climb. Then if you persevere through all of this the reserve bank steals all the forex you have earned and gives it to other people. The profit you have earned from exports is not your to spend as you see fit. Reserve bank takes half of your earnings and makes you put these funds in a special account that is very restrictive in the way that it can be spent. All in all you end up feeling like some kind of criminal for the crime of exporting, creating employment and paying taxes. Deal with these issues and exports will take care of themselves without some quasi government know nothings lecturing on subjects of which they are entirely ignorant