Let’s produce, buy local

First of all, I would like to stress that this is a wrong perception of Buy Zimbabwe and its thrust.
Our focus as Buy Zimbabwe should not be misunderstood to be one-dimensional and encouraging blind adherence to local products.
We push for competitiveness through increased production and encouraging quality offerings from our partners leading to increased consumption of local brands.

The initiative looks at buying Zimbabwe as a holistic process. Our primary focus is on “wealth for the nation and jobs for the people”, meaning that we are also focused on the productivity of the economy as highlighted by our submissions to the MTP through the National Economic Consultative Forum and creating markets for locally produced products.

Buy Zimbabwe is striving to strike a balance between productivity, competitiveness and consumption.
What we are saying is that Buy Zimbabwe is an empowerment and competitiveness driver that promotes the increased production and consumption of local goods and services in the face of an influx of foreign goods, some of which are either dumped or illegally imported into the country.

There are sectors that are ready for the process of buying local and there are some that are not.
For progress sake, we cannot take a “wait and see attitude” to ensure that the process of buying Zimbabwe is achieved.
Let us take, for example, the motor industry that has been in the news over the last couple of months.

Information that is privy to Buy Zimbabwe is that our two major car assembling plants, Quest Motor Corporation and Willowvale Mazda Motor Industries, lost out on a recent tender to supply 90 vehicles which they could have easily supplied because the vehicles are available in their stock yards.
The local players are producing cars that are not finding any buyers.

It has been revealed that with the right policies, the local motor industry can easily assemble cheaper, competitive vehicles right in our backyards, which can compete with those that are being imported.
For the benefit of the partners that are producing competitively and have contributed to the moderate leap in capacity utilisation, from less than 20 percent to about 57 percent, we need to have a bit of market focus.

For those that are still struggling to produce, we have a production focus.
It would be rudimentary to focus on production alone and then not create sustainable markets for the products.
Agreeably, capacity utilisation is still low but where we have the products let us celebrate them one brand at a time till we get it right.

We cannot ignore the fact that we have local companies such as National Foods that have competitive  brands such as their Red Seal Roller Meal that are aggressive.
Only this week the food processing concern launched its massive “Mnandi Nandi” promotion where consumers will derive a great sense of satisfaction from winning great prizes.

With over US$100 000 worth of prizes, the competition is surely going to attract a lot of consumers nationwide.
The interesting bit about the prizes is that they are very practical to our everyday lives and these include generators, ploughs, scotchcarts, bicycles and motorcycles.
National Foods has also offered SMS entries bonus weekly prizes to its lucky consumers.

Over a million entry forms have been packed into the 10 and 20kg Red Seal Roller Meal and Pearlenta packs, giving consumers more chances of winning.
My parting shot is that as a nation let us avoid over-generalising issues as this will affect us in realising the areas where we have done well and should be congratulating ourselves.

We also need to be conscious of the areas that are exhibiting the most potential and their immediate needs and the critical areas that require long-term solutions. We have to appreciate that it is not all our sectors that are in the red.
Till next week . . . God Bless.

• For comments, contributions and membership contact Buy Zimbabwe on: [email protected], [email protected], Cell: 0772 714 233 or visit 46 Lawson Road, Milton Park, Harare, Facebook/Twitter: buy zimbabwe campaign, Website: www.buyzimbabwe.org.zw