adminZIMBABWE National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) president, Davison Norupiri, says the government should not waste resources trying to resuscitate companies which can no longer be saved.
He, instead, called for increased involvement of small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in policy formulation to unlock growth.
Norupiri told the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce on Wednesday that, as an emerging economy, SMEs deserve adequate policy support.
“We would want the government and parliamentarians to quickly address this and come up with favourable policies to support the emerging economy,” Norupiri said.
He added that some or most members of the emerging economy were actually SMEs and complained that SMEs who have formalised their operations were not getting attention in terms of policy formulation.
Norupiri said attention was mainly being given to the informal sector, which is not contributing to the fiscus in terms of tax.
“So we strongly feel this economy is being driven by the emerging economy,” he said.
“We’ve a number of industries to look at, we’ve a number of corporates who used to operate at full capacity and are no longer operating at full capacity. We had the Dimaf, government was trying to revive some of the companies but some of the companies can’t be revived.”
Apart from favourable policies, Norupiri said the government should also address the issue of corruption, government failure to pay for services rendered by the private sector, high cost of borrowings, infrastructure improvements, and the delay of labour reforms, opportunities for women and access to markets among many others.
Zimbabwe has witnessed the closure of dozens of companies in the last decade resulting in thousands of workers losing jobs.
Independent surveys have pointed to high costs of production, lack of long-term funding, high interest rates and generally low competitiveness in the wake of imports, as major barriers to domestic growth.
Acting on the recommendations of industry experts, the government has set up a Cabinet committee on competitiveness that is working on modalities of enhancing local industry viability.
A number of reforms have been approved by Cabinet and await passing into law.
Among these are labour laws, mining legislation, setting up of special economic zones and a national competitiveness commission. The revival of industries is at the heart of the country’s five-year plan Zim-Asset (2013-18) blueprint, which is anchored on four clusters.
These include infrastructure development and utilities, value addition and beneficiation, food security and nutrition and improved social services poverty eradication.
The country needs about $27 billion to finance projects under Zim-Asset, which are expected to create more than two million jobs. — Business Reporter/ZNCC daily newletter.
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