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Martin Kadzere Senior Business Reporter
THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries said it is optimistic about the overall transformation of the economy this year despite the projected poor agricultural season. Its president, Mr Busisa Moyo, said significant strides in setting the stage for economic transformation have been put in place and priority should be on implementation. “We are really quite positive,” said Mr Moyo in an interview.
“Of course there are a lot of things; there is clarification on implementation of indigenisation, a framework on Special Economic Zones was put in place and this should put us on firm recovery path.”
However, Mr Moyo said the performance of the industry would be “a bit dull” due to lower rains and urged the Government to streamline issuance of import permits to allow the industry to import raw materials.
“It will be hard because of drought but we expect Government to allow companies to import raw materials so that they remain in business.” Recently, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Dr John Mangudya said several policy interventions, which were put in place last year by the central bank would see strong recovery of the economy this year and beyond.
He said despite inability of the central bank to perform its traditional functions as a result on multi-currency system, the RBZ managed to re-engineer its own tools to ensure stability is achieved.
These include the Africa Export and Import Bank interbank facility, which enables banks with surplus to lend those in deficit and the establishment of Zimbabwe Asset Management Company (ZAMCO), a vehicle being used to remove toxic assets from books of financial institutions and companies.
More importantly, Dr Mangudya said the acceptance of the country plan to repay the debt owed to multi-lateral institutions has minimised the perceived country risk.
Online Reporter