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Michael Tome Business Reporter
BUY Zimbabwe has challenged local businesses to tap opportunities in the cotton and leather value chains, stressing that Zimbabwe continues to incur a high import bill buying foreign products made from such raw materials.
Zimbabwe produces cotton and leather in abundance but they are mostly exported raw, while locals spend millions of dollars importing cotton and leather products.
Unlike machinery and petroleum products, Zimbabwe is unnecessarily losing elusive hard currency by importing products that could be easily produced locally.
Zimbabwe uses 30 percent of locally grown cotton while 70 percent is exported to textile industries around the world hence, because of failure to exploit a competitive advantage in the cotton value chain considering the country’s ability to grow the essential raw material (cotton) locally.
The local fabric market is now dominated by imports, particularly from China, Pakistan, and India. Most clothing retail shops are also largely packed with imported clothes.
Clothing companies now import garments worth millions of dollars a year in and out rendering the textile industry redundant.
Zimbabwe has the potential to restore its status as a major producer and supplier of textile and leather products in Africa and beyond a position it has held in preceding years.
Leather sector is also considered a low-hanging fruit for the Zimbabwean economy given the country’s comparative advantages in livestock.
To support the recuperation and growth of the leather sector, the Treasury in 2022 launched a US$5 million kitty apiece to enhance the cotton and leather value chains, the pharmaceuticals sector included.
In 2020, the Government approved the Zimbabwe Leather Sector Strategy (2021 -2030) which is anticipated to increase investments, value addition, and beneficiation of leather.
The strategy seeks to increase the overall competitiveness of the leather value chain locally.
Earlier in the year, the Treasury Chief said the Government seeks to accelerate the structural transformation of the manufacturing sector to improve value-addition capacity and diversification of the local product range.
The manufacturing sector has been witnessing growth since 2019, with capacity utilisation steadily growing to current levels while domestic food products have grown to improve their occupancy on the shelves of local supermarkets.
Speaking during an interview, Buy Zimbabwe chairman Munyaradzi Hwengwere decried Zimbabwe’s lack of competitive advantage in the two sectors given the abundance of potential.
“Zimbabwe is weak in the clothing and footwear sectors, and it again calls for a stronger drive to ensure that there is increased value addition within our cotton and leather value chains.
“Our cotton sector is among the largest on the continent and we have a thriving livestock sector in Zimbabwe, but we find ourselves mega importers of cotton and leather products.
“I think there is a need to target those areas where we are weak and improve, there is an evident need to value add locally so that we can also increase our value-added exports, our exports of value-added products are still little,” said Mr Hwengwere.
“There are certain things that we cannot avoid importing like petroleum products because we don’t produce those in Zimbabwe.”
He however acknowledged the successes of the Buy Zimbabwe campaign particularly with regards to foodstuffs.
“As a country, we used to import a lot of foodstuffs, but over the past few years, food imports into Zimbabwe have significantly reduced.
In his budget 2024 National Budget Statement a fortnight ago, Finance Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube implored consumers to prioritise the purchase of local products over imports, as a way to preserve domestic jobs and promote value chains to unlock the growth potential of the economy.
“This is important to sustain the recent increase in capacity utilisation across various sub-sectors of the economy and the growth of manufactured exports. On their part, local industries are expected to produce competitive and quality products,” said Minster Ncube.
He chronicled the strides that the government had taken in making sure that local manufacturers produced goods of better quality.
“To guarantee the authenticity of local content origin and quality of products and services produced in Zimbabwe, Buy Zimbabwe, an organisation dedicated to the production and promotion of local products and services, partnered with Quality Management Institute of Zimbabwe (QMIZ) and Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) to establish a robust content and quality certification process,” he added.
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