Economists hail Congress

via Economists hail Congress | The Herald 8 December 8, 2014 by Farirai Machivenyika

Resolutions passed by Zanu-PF on the economy at its 6th National People’s Congress show that the party is serious about economic revival and that there is hope the country will soon claim its rightful position as an economic giant in the region. Economic analysts yesterday welcomed the resolutions and urged Government to urgently implement them since they are the panacea to economic revival.

The Zanu-PF congress that was held under the theme “Accelerated Implementation of Zim-Asset,” adopted a number of resolutions meant to address the country’s economic performance.

Among the resolutions, the ruling party urged Government to urgently address the country’s infrastructure, encourage growth of Small to Medium Enterprises, create an enabling environment for foreign direct investment and improve food security and nutrition, among others.

“If you look at the situation at the moment we have infrastructure bottlenecks that have affected the performance of our industry and this has resulted in the negative performance of our manufacturing sector and its competitiveness,” said Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president Mr Charles Msipa.

“It is, therefore, welcome that the party talked of the need to improve infrastructure, especially availability of electricity and water.” Mr Msipa said it was important that Zanu-PF had acknowledged the importance of the SMEs sector and the need to attract FDI.

“All over the world, SMEs provide the bulk of employment, so Government should provide an enabling environment for their growth so that they can also become large scale corporations,” he said.

“We also need FDI and it’s important that the party also acknowledged the role that it plays as the country is in critical need of fresh capital.”

Mr Msipa challenged Government to implement the resolutions urgently.

“The resolutions dovetail with what we have been saying, but what we need is urgent implementation so that we improve the economy.”

Former banker and economist Mr Joseph Sagwati said Zanu-PF was spot-on on the economy since the growth of SMEs and attraction of FDI were critical to the immediate growth of the economy.

“Those are some of what we call immediate and urgent approaches to resuscitate the economy,” he said. “We need fresh capital from abroad because that is what is affecting most companies in the economy, so it is important that the party talked about the need to attract FDI.”

Mr Sagwati said it was important that Government reduced its import bill by promoting local food production.

In its resolutions, Zanu-PF called on Government to take note of the effects of climate change and promote irrigation to improve productivity and the subsequent downstream industries. Mr Sagwati called for Government to ensure that structural weakness in the energy, manpower development and parastatals were addressed to ensure an improvement in the fortunes of the economy.

Affirmative Action Group president Mr Chamu Chiwanza hailed President Mugabe and Zanu-PF for remaining resolute on the irreversibility of the indigenisation programme.

“We hail President Mugabe and Zanu-PF for reiterating that the indigenisation policy is here to stay,” he said.

“That will send a clear message to investors on where we stand.

“We also commend the party for accepting the importance of SMEs and that organisations like NSSA should provide cheap funding to them. SMEs are failing to access cheap financing from banks, so if they are given access to pension funds as mentioned by the resolutions this will go a long way in ensuring their growth.

“Like what the theme of the congress was, what we should see is an accelerated implementation of Zim-Asset and the resolutions that were passed at the congress.

“The speedy implementation of the resolutions will definitely improve the economy.”

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Mr Wonder Chabikwa said it was significant that Zanu-PF had acknowledged the effects of climate change.