Conversations must focus on production
February 3, 2021 in Opinion
By Andrew Lampard
Driving through Zimbabwe’s once vibrant industrial hubs in Belmont (Bulawayo), Paulington (Mutare), Southerton, Graniteside, Working, Msasa (all in Harare), and elsewhere, one gets the sense that the country is burdened by white elephants.
The economic crises of the last two decades left Zimbabwe’s industries in ruins, and needing a restart to achieve the government’s vision of transforming Africa’s once thriving nation into an upper middle class economy by year 2030.
Needless to say, there are patches in those decaying industrial hubs where one could see smoke bellowing through the chimneys and hear wheezing sounds from rotors and vibrating panels. But these are rare and far in-between.
By Alois Vinga
RAW materials in the form of minerals, cotton, among others continue to dominate the country’s exports indicating an urgent need to revamp the local manufacturing capacity.
The latest Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s (RBZ) Monthly Economic Review for the period ended September 2020 shows that exports for the month under review were dominated by nickel ores and concentrates 24%, nickel mattes 21%, gold 17%, tobacco 11 % and platinum 6%.
Industrial diamonds, ferro-chromium, cane sugar, ginned cotton were among the top export lists during the period.
“The bulk of the country’s exports went to South Africa, accounting for about 39.7%, followed by Mozambique (11.3%) and the United Arab Emirates (9.6%). The country’s merchandise exports rose by 2.4%, from US$389.3 million in August to US$398.8 million in September 2020,” the reports said.
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