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THE Ministry of Industry and Commerce says it intends to urgently move a motion in Parliament that should culminate in Zimbabwe acceding to the African Trade Insurance Agency in order to open up lines of credit and lure foreign investment, a senior official has said.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe business forum in Harare yesterday, deputy minister Chiratidzo Mabuwa said this would be a critical move in ensuring the country’s industry is re-capacitated.
“As a ministry we intend to push the motion so that our country can be able to enjoy the many benefits that come with being part of the agency as soon as possible. It will ensure mending potential investors’ negative perception about our investment environment while also leading to interaction with other economies affiliated to the agency. This will ensure the opening of credit lines as well as giving assurance to credit facilitators,” she said.
ATI is a multilateral financial institution that provides export credit insurance, political risk insurance, investment insurance and other financial products to help reduce the business risks and costs of doing business in Africa. It also facilitates exports and foreign direct investment into and trade flows within the continent.
ATI was launched in 2001 with the financial and technical support of the World Bank and the backing of seven African countries. In less than a decade, it had supported over US$2,5 billion worth of trade and investments across the continent, while it secured an investment grade rating of “A” from Standard & Poor’s and expanded membership to many African countries with plans to eventually attract non-African member states.
The agency was also created to fill a market gap in trade and investment risk mitigation in Africa.
In the past, risk mitigation tools for credit and political insurance were not available for many African countries, and where the cover existed, it was very costly. To complement Government’s efforts to revive the ailing manufacturing industry, deputy minister Mabuwa also implored professional bodies such as ICAZ to identify factors underlying the continued downward trends over the past three years in real growth and capacity utilisation.
She added that this would assist in devising mitigating measures that can resuscitate our industry.
Currently, the country’s average capacity utilisation stands at 39,6 percent while last year it stood at 44,9 percent. In 2011 it was at 57,2 percent.
Deputy Minister Mabuwa expressed her ministry’s willingness towards implementation of tenets of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation as a way of reviving the ailing industry.
Online Reporter