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The trade and industrial blueprints that have the full blessings of President Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai are a call to all and sundry to focus on realising the country’s full potential.
What is required for the policies to bear fruit is unity of purpose to unlock and exploit the export potential and the opportunities at our disposal to make trade perform as the engine for economic growth and development.
From the perspective of industrialists, the Industrial Development Policy should be anchored on the goals of the Medium Term Plan to achieve the desired goals.
The economy has traditionally been anchored on the four pillars of agriculture, mining, manufacturing and tourism and the industrial pillar not only adds value to products from the agricultural and mining sectors, but also reduces poverty.
It goes without saying that industrialisation is a critical driver of economic growth and development.
Besides creating job opportunities, industrialisation will create the much-needed links across the agricultural, mining and service sectors, between rural and urban economies and across consumers, intermediate and capital goods industries.
The industrial sector requires all the support from the Government to ensure that it overcomes the challenges that are weighing it down and enhance its performance so that it can get the competitive edge it requires in the global market.
While the country has for long been talking about its abundant natural resources, value addition and beneficiation should now be the focus of this policy.
Our country is abundantly endowed with natural resources and as long as they are not fully exploited, we will forever be trapped in poverty.
The challenge we have is to transform the economy from dependence on raw resources to one that enjoys beneficiated products that are knowledge-driven, dynamic and diversified.
The National Trade Policy will complement and leverage industrial development as well as give support to broad-based economic growth objectives of the Medium Term Plan.
The National Trade Policy should diversify the country’s exports and at the same time expand and explore new markets.
It should also promote consumption of locally produced goods and services.
With political will and commitment at the highest level, it is incumbent upon the technocrats to ensure that the policies are effectively implemented across the board.
Having the blueprint is one thing, but implementation is another.
Achievement of the goals and objectives of the policies hinges on policy consistency and co-ordination within Government and participation of all stakeholders in a strategic and focused manner.
One of the key issues emerging from the 2012 National Budget was the country’s ever rising trade deficit, which is essentially the difference between what the
country imports against the exports.
The challenge is to increase the exports and effectively reduce the imports that are uncharacteristically high at the moment.
This is because of a subdued performance by our industrial sector that has seen an upsurge of imported goods, mainly foodstuffs.
Implementation of the policies should be done in a collective effort to ensure that Team Zimbabwe is on top of the game and we will all rejoice when the results filter through.
As Zimbabweans we should desist from playing the blame game as we all have a role to play and the more we stick together the stronger we will be and our enemies will not find any gaps to infiltrate us.
Online Reporter