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Brighton Gumbo Business Reporter
THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) has described 2015 as a tough year for business as the cost environment remained high.
In an interview, CZI president Busisa Moyo said business confidence for this year was 37.9 percent. Business confidence is an economic indicator that measures the amount of optimism or pessimism that industry feels about their prospects.
“This year was a tough year for industry with capacity utilisation declining from 36.5 percent to 34.3 percent which is a 2.2 percent drop from 2014.
“The slow down being experienced in the economy at large hasn’t spared the manufacturing sector.
“The cost environment remains high and there’s much work to be done on the ease of doing business,” he said.
Moyo said despite the prevailing economic environment it was encouraging to note that no company closures among CZI members were recorded this year.
He attributed this to improved working relationship between the government and the private sector.
“During the course of the year, there’re a number of companies that returned to the market notably Blue Ribbon Foods, Cairns Holdings and Archer Clothing.
“There were also new companies that were set up in the beverages, clothing, leather and dairy sectors. In the same sectors, we’ve also seen capacity expansion and addition of new equipment as companies seek to capture more market share and become more efficient through technology.”
He said Zimbabwe was now self-sufficient in cooking oil and soap adding that there was no longer a need to continue importing the products.
“We’re working with the government to translate these positive results to other sectors so that we reduce the country’s import bill,” he said.
Following the adoption of the multicurrency system in February 2009, there has been an influx of imported products like clothing and footwear, groceries and vehicles among others from South Africa, Botswana, United Kingdom, Brazil and China.
South Africa is the country’s biggest trading partner accounting for 40 percent of the import bill and 68 percent of exports.
The import bill, according to the 2015 Midterm Fiscal Policy, is projected to reach 64 percent by year-end.
The overall high import bill is mainly due to increased dependence on foreign goods.
Online Reporter