Cabinet approves National Competitiveness Bill

Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
CABINET has approved a Bill to set up the National Competitiveness Commission which will look at eliminating distortions and policy inconsistencies associated with doing business in Zimbabwe.

The country is rated poorly as an investment destination at 155 out of 189 by the World Bank Ease of Doing Business index.

Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha announced Wednesday that Cabinet had approved the National Competitiveness Commission (NCC) Bill.

“As I speak, I just want to inform that just yesterday in Cabinet, the Bill of the National Competitiveness Commission (NCC) was approved and it now goes to Parliament,” he said while speaking at the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting in Harare to review the measures the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has announced to tame the cash crisis that has hit the country in recent weeks.

Last week, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe announced a raft of measures among them the introduction of $200 million worth of bond notes guaranteed by the African Export and Import Bank (AfreximBank).

“The majority; 95 percent of the board members of this commission will come from the private sector. This is in recognition of the people who are running businesses…,” said Minister Bimha.

He said the formation of the NCC entails that the country now needs to look at issues of competitiveness to reduce the cost of production in industries.

“We now need to look at issues of competitiveness, issues to do with prices of utilities, power, water, rules and regulations but more importantly, let’s compare with our regional partners and see how much we charge,” Bimha said.

Since the liberalisation of the economy in February 2009, the manufacturing sector is still struggling to improve capacity utilisation to competitive levels due to high cost of production from utilities.

According to the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector last year stood at 34,3 percent slipping 2,2 percentage points from the 2014 levels of 36,5 percent.