Legislative vacuum worries Govt

authenticate the quality and specification of imports to ensure consumer protection.
“The legal framework for quality control of products coming into the country has taken too long to be finalised and as a ministry we are equally frustrated.
“We are, however, anticipating enactment of such legislation before the end of this year,” he said.
The deputy minister was responding to a question posed by Standards Association of Zimbabwe director-general Mrs Eve Gadzikwa during the ZimTrade Exporters Conference 2012 in Harare last week.
Zimbabwe currently does not have a law that effectively stops the importation of sub-standard and often harmful products, a situation that has left consumers largely exposed.
The Government, however, recently launched a National Trade Policy (NTP), which specifies that the Government will “enact legislation that will make it mandatory for companies to comply with specified national and international standards on specified products”.
Such a law would also play a critical role in restricting the country’s level of imports, which have continued on an upward trend.
Statistics presented by Deputy Minister Bimha showed that Zimbabwe’s annual trade deficit stood at US$1,3 billion as at the close of 2011.
He said export earnings increased to US$4,3 billion last year, while the import bill increased to US$5,6 billion.
Deputy Minister Bimha, however, said the Government was targeting to increase export earnings by 10 percent a year.
“The ultimate target is to increase export earnings by at least 10 percent annually, from US$4,3 billion in 2011 to US$7 billion in 2016,” he said.
ZimTrade chief executive officer Ms Sithembile Pilime urged the Government to offer proper incentives to local exporters.
“A number of countries in region, for example South Africa, have much more comprehensive export incentive schemes hence they tend to be more competitive. Our export incentives need to be effective and relevant to the present trade dynamics,” she said.
It was also noted during the conference that the country’s mining sector is now the largest contributor to export earnings at around 50 percent of total exports.
This is a worrisome trend insofar as it reflects poor performance on the part of the agricultural and manufacturing sectors that were historically the main contributors to export earnings.
These therefore require export-oriented industrialisation strategies, as envisioned in the five-year Industrial Development Policy and the NTP.
The overarching objective of the IDP and the NTP is to restore the manufacturing sector’s contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product from the current 15 percent to 30 percent and its contribution to exports from 26 percent to 50 percent by 2016.
But policy is merely a statement of intent and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce is yet to promulgate the implementation matrices for the two documents.