via Govt adopts industry recommendations October 28, 2014
GOVERNMENT has adopted some of the recommendations from a report which was submitted to Cabinet by industry on the challenges and recommendations in order to grow the economy, a government official has said.
Speaking at a breakfast meeting in Harare yesterday, Industry and Commerce minister Mike Bimha said the ministry was requested by industry to present a paper on the state of industry and the paper was presented to Cabinet containing detailed challenges which are faced by each sub-sector and the interventions necessary to turn the economy around.
“Most of these recommendations were taken on board and others require further refining and we still have to consult further with some of the recommendations and also to be able to articulate the indications of the sector and make sure they are taken on board.
“We would want to support our local manufacturing and I think it is in incumbent with any government to support its manufacturing sector to create a conducive environment for it to operate. But we can only do that if we continue to interact,” Bimha said.
He, however, said from some of the interventions by government, uncontrolled imports coming into the country were killing the manufacturing sector, but also there was need to balance some of the measures to be in line with the regional groupings Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa)
“All this imports coming in, some of them (are) of inferior quality, others very cheap. We are killing (the) manufacturing sector instead of supporting it.
Again, we had to balance the measures that we wanted to put in line with our regional groupings Sadc and Comesa. We responded through the interventions that came through the Ministry of Finance in terms of managing the tariff regime reducing duty on imported raw materials or scrapping them altogether.”
He, however, said on those duties that government felt were produced in sufficient numbers to meet demand, government set up an advisory committee made up of private sector representatives to interact with the businesspeople and produce a comprehensive report on what has happened on the imports trends and also a number of recommendations.
He added that the committee was also tasked to carry out further work linked to their recommendations.
“We have also removed a number of products from the importations open general lines and, therefore, require people to obtain a licence before importing certain goods,” he said.
Bimha said government was facing a lot of challenges regarding smuggling due to corruption and other ills.
He added that government also had challenges with wholesalers and manufacturers that are not ensuring that their products get to all corners of the country.
“And these are issues that we want to put our heads together as government, private sector, police and everyone on how to curb smuggling,” he said.
Speaking at the same event Dairibord Zimbabwe Limited Group CEO Antony Mandiwanza said there was need to create a conducive environment that allows building capacities and being able to go out there and be able to compete on a level playing field.
“What we are saying is this economy must not be inward-looking, we must look both from within and outside the country. In other words, we must export,” Mandiwanza said.
He, however, said the problem as a country was not ideas, but acting on the ideas and being able to implement them.
“What we lack is the spirit and willingness to make things happen. We spend so much time talking, but not doing and that is our biggest achievement but l think we need to face that head-on so that it is not as usual type of behaviour.
“We need to spend time monitoring on those things that we have agreed.”
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