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Oliver Kazunga Business Reporter
THE Association for Business in Zimbabwe (Abuz) will today hold a post-budget breakfast meeting in Bulawayo to analyse and review the 2014 fiscal policy statement.
Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa presented this year’s national budget on December 19, 2013.
Review of previous budgets has been done soon after the announcement of the fiscal policy but last year this was not possible because this year’s budget was presented at a time when some stakeholders had closed down.
As a result, this made it difficult for business organisations such as Abuz to organise post-budget review meetings.
“Please be advised that Abuz will be hosting a post-national budget review breakfast meeting on Monday, January 20, 2014 at the Holiday Inn Hotel from 7am to 9am.
“Non-members are also free to attend. Registration and payment should be done at the ABUZ office by Friday 17 January 2014 midday,” said the association’s chief executive, Lucky Mlilo.
Minister Chinamasa presented a $4.02 billion budget which he said was anchored on the country’s new five-year economic blue-print, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset).
“The 2014 national budget seeks to facilitate the implementation of Zim-Asset programmes, paying particular attention to those priorities earmarked for delivery in 2014.
“Central to this is recovery of both public and private investment in the economy. This should anchor increased economic activity across the various productive sectors of the economy,” said Minister Chinamasa in his presentation.
He said apart from political uncertainty, last year the economy faced poor agricultural season due to late, uneven and erratic rainfall.
He said tight liquidity situation, retreating commodity prices, frequent power outages as well as unreliable water supply, among others, had a heavy toll on the economy.
And succumbing to the above challenges, Minister Chinamasa said the economy depicted signs of slowdown in 2013, although the overall economic growth remained positive.
As a result, real economic activity in 2013 was estimated to grow by 3.4 percent from an estimate of 10.6 percent realised in 2012.
The major drivers were mining, construction and tourism, among others.
This year, the economy is, however, projected to record strong growth of about 6.1percent premised on an active ZimAsset programme policy scenario anchored on strong recovery of agriculture and improved performance of mining and construction sectors.
Online Reporter