Online Reporter
Business Reporter
Zimbabwe’s manufacturing sector is registering significant progress, with its share of Manufacturing Value Added (MVA) in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increasing from 9.2 percent in 2010 to 15.5 percent in 202.
The findings, published in the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) latest Africa Industrialisation Index 2025, place Zimbabwe ahead of several regional peers, even as Southern Africa battles systemic deindustrialisation driven by the economic decline of its largest market, South Africa.
The index evaluates industrial progress across 54 African countries from 2010 to 2024 using 19 key metrics.
According to the AfDB report, Zimbabwe’s 15,5 percent MVA contribution to its GDP in 2024 positions it near the top of the regional ladder.
It trails only Eswatini, where manufacturing represents a dominant 28,1 percent of GDP.
By comparison, Zimbabwe has outperformed diamond-rich Botswana, where manufacturing accounts for just 5,5 percent of GDP, and São Tomé and Príncipe, which sits at the bottom at a mere 1 percent.
In 2024, manufacturing contributed 11,6 percent to Southern Africa’s overall GDP — tracking above the continental average of 10,6 percent.
The AfDB noted that while the regional figure remains slightly below 2010 levels, it marks a steady recovery from a critical low point of 10,15 percent recorded in 2014.
Zimbabwe’s MVA per capita rose from US$83 in 2010 to US$399,60 in 2024.
This growth indicates that the individual productivity and economic output within the country’s manufacturing installations have expanded substantially over the past 14 years.
It also suggests a degree of resilience and capacity utilisation recovery within domestic factories, even as the broader Southern African region saw its average MVA per capita decline due to South Africa’s industrial slowdown.
However, the report exposes critical structural vulnerabilities in the country’s trade profile, revealing that Zimbabwe’s manufactured exports are heavily dominated by basic metals.
This represents the highest concentration of primary metal exports within the Southern African region.
While the high volume of metal exports boosts gross trade figures, it underscores a persistent reliance on raw or semi-processed mineral commodities, leaving the economy highly exposed to volatile global commodity price shocks.
The lack of downstream industrial diversification is further highlighted by the fact that high-value downstream products — such as processed food products, manufactured chemicals, machinery and other finished consumer goods — each accounts for less than 2 percent of Zimbabwe’s total export basket.
The lack of deep structural transformation is also reflected in the sector’s labour dynamics, where manufacturing employment as a share of total national employment fell slightly to 4,7 percent in 2024, down from 5.2 percent in 2010.
While Zimbabwe bucked the trend by registering gains in key metrics, the broader industrial diagnostic for Southern Africa remains deeply troubling.
The report stresses that by most main metrics of industrial development, the region is “insufficiently industrialised”, despite maintaining its rank as the second-best-performing region on the continent.
The structural vulnerabilities of the region become starker when measured by MVA per capita — an indicator that corrects for relative economic size and more accurately captures true growth dynamics.
Southern Africa’s average MVA per capita plummeted from US$426 in 2010 to US$336 in 2024, representing an average annual decrease of 1,7 percent.
The AfDB tied this regional deterioration to the sharp underperformance of South Africa.
The regional powerhouse saw its MVA per capita contract from US$1 105 to US$800 over the period — a negative Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 2,3 percent.
