Buy Zim to give awards to corporates, individuals

Buy Zimbabwe is a competitiveness and empowerment driver that seeks to unlock the country’s full potential through aggressive promotion of the production and consumption of local products on the domestic and international markets.

“Later this year, we shall be awarding individuals, companies, associations and the media that continue to promote local procurement. Our Buy Zimbabwe awards shall be anchored on criteria that looks at local content, labour, quality and environmental awareness,” said the Buy Zimbabwe board of trustee, Mr Oswell Binha.

He said the Buy Zimbabwe initiative continues to advocate for the consumption of locally manufactured products as well as supporting the Government’s local procurement policy.

Towards the end of last year, the Buy Zimbabwe partnership linkages programme was launched.

Mr Binha, who is also the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) president, said the partnership linkages programme had already started showing results. “. . . already we see it bearing fruit with a number of local companies committing to begin procuring from each other wherever possible,” he said.

The Buy Zimbabwe strategic partners include the National Economic Consultative Forum, Standards Association of Zimbabwe, Marketers Association, ZNCC and the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries,” said Mr Binha.

He added: “We have also begun the process of taking the initiative from the boardroom to the streets through our customer interface programmes which include a 13-week television entrepreneurial show, My Own Boss.”

He said the initiative to encourage local consumption of goods and services was not about blind adherence to buying locally.

“We have a strong focus on competitiveness and quality of our local goods and services,” he said, adding the Buy Zimbabwe initiative was not just about fast moving consumer goods.

As a result of the strategic importance of the country’s mining industry to  economic growth and development, Mr Binha said Buy Zimbabwe was prepared to offer support to the local mining sector in line with issues affecting and impacting mineral production.

Due to low capacity utilisation in Zimbabwe’s manufacturing sector, last year the country continued  as a net importer registering an import bill of $8 billion against an export bill of $5 billion resulting in a trade deficit of $3 billion.