Dimaf set to increase

Midlands Correspondent
THE government is negotiating with Old Mutual over the Distressed Industries and Marginalised Areas Fund (Dimaf) to make the facility bigger as well as relaxing some of its conditions for lending.Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha said the government wants more distressed firms to access Dimaf loans, hence the ongoing talks.

The government and Old Mutual set up Dimaf, whose resources are disbursed through CABS, to bail out ailing companies in the country.

Forty-eight companies have benefited from the $28 million loan facility since the fund’s inception in 2011.

Minister Bimha said: “We still have Dimaf and we are negotiating with its original funders so that they would make it bigger and more accessible,” he said.

The government and Old Mutual were both supposed to commit $20 million each to Dimaf.

Old Mutual contributed $20 million, but the government failed to honour its pledge thus Old Mutual had contributed more than it initially pledged.

Minister Bimha said government would soon reconfigure Industrial Development Corporation of Zimbabwe Limited (IDCZ) to ensure rapid industrial development as well as housing all financial facilities meant for local industry.

IDCZ is a self-financing, national development finance institution but wholly owned by government.

“We are making efforts as government to reconfigure IDCZ so that it plays its original role of facilitating industrial growth. We would want to house any financial facility and schemes within IDCZ. We want facilities such as Dimaf and others that we are sourcing from Comesa and anywhere else to be housed under IDCZ. We are also engaging the Reserve Bank Governor (Dr John Mangudya) to assist the ministry to open up other opportunities and he is working towards that. He is engaging financial institutions particularly on the issue of non-performing debt,” he said.

Minister Bimha said there was need for local industries to start scouting and cultivating markets within Africa.

“Business is not only in Europe or outside the African continent. We must start considering intra-Africa trading where we identify markets within the continent. For instance we might increase sugar production and export it to countries like Nigeria where it is on high demand. We need to diversify,” he said.

The Minister said the government was also banking on the possible lifting of illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the European Union at the behest of Britain. He said the EU was going to deliberate on the illegal sanctions next month.

Minister Bimha said the government had reduced duty on imported raw materials as well as increasing tax on imported finished products in a bid to protect local industry.