adminAddressing delegates to mark belated World Standards Day at a hotel in Bulawayo recently, CCZ regional manager for Matabeleland, Mr Comfort Muchekeza, challenged local industries to produce competitive products based on quality.
“The issue of globalisation has opened up the borders where the world has become a single village where as a country we compete with foreign or international producers.
“While we are competing with international borders, we should not only allow them to compete with us here. Instead, we should also enter their markets,” he said.
“Why can’t we compete with them say for example in Asia? I would like to urge local businesses to be proactive and think about competing with foreign producers in their own lands. We need to embrace international standards as we produce our products.”
Local producers have decried the influx of imported products mainly from the Far East saying the foreign products created unfair competition on the market.
Zimbabwe’s clothing and textile industry has been cited as an example where players have remained in limbo due to stiff competition from the Asian products.
Mr Muchekeza said local industries needed to adhere to international standards to produce high quality products that they could export to create competition in foreign backyards.
He said the world had come to a stage where consumers had become quality sensitive rather than price sensitive.
“As there is no substitute to quality, as CCZ we would like to appeal to local producers to engage the Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) on what is expected on a product before it is on the market,” said Mr Muchekeza.
SAZ is Zimbabwe’s national standards board formed in 1957 and incorporated in 1960.
The association among other priorities promotes the development and use of national standards in order to enhance Zimbabwe’s competitiveness and safeguard the welfare of communities.
Online Reporter