adminNgoni Dapira Business Correspondent
THERE is need for Government to meet local industry demands which entail partial protectionist measures as industry looks for opportunities to improve meaningful volumes and increase capacity utilisation, Cairns Holdings chief executive officer, Ms Nancy Guzha has said.
She said this last week Friday in Chimanimani at the official launch of the firms’ Pea beans out-grower programme and rebranding of its Cashel Valley baked beans range.
The agro-processing firm last year in November came out of judicial management following the coming on board of local investment holding company, Takura Capital.
Ms Guzha said as Cairns, they were not looking forward to protectionism from sub-standard products that were flooding the market, and a chance to grow a market for Zimbabwean manufactured products of the same international standards certification as the cheap imports.
“What we are calling for is not reinventing the wheel. Other countries have done this before. We are looking for a chance to have meaningful volumes pass through and for capacity utilization to improve. Let us not be an imports nation, which is why we re-launched our Pea beans out-grower programme,” she said.
After coming out of judicial management in November last year, Ms Guzha said Cairns had gone through three-months of re-strategising to breathe new life into the firm. However, she added that the success of the strategies were not secluded from the external economic challenges of cheap imports affecting most local industries.
“We are going back into every single brand to consider how to alter our pricing by reducing production costs which usually determine the shelve price. However, all these internal strategies will need Government support, which is why we are calling for some form of protectionism to support key industries for a set period,” said the Cairns Holdings chief.
Mutare’s Cairns Foods operations manager, Mr Joseph Mavhu said under the economic turnaround blueprint ZimAsset, on value addition, Government was overlooking critical components of value creation which create jobs and sustain the economy.
“There is need for Government to strongly support the productive sector of which in Zimbabwe it is agriculture, mining and manufacturing. We need to create value by reviving our productive sectors and buttress value consumption by consuming our own products to sustain local industry,” said Mr Mavhu.
Business analyst, Mrs Letina Undenge said synergies of value addition should have connection to realise meaningful contributions towards the gross domestic product.
She said there was need for rapport between business, Government and consumers in the revival process of the country’s manufacturing industry.
“Rapport is important between business, Government and consumers to drive the country’s economic revival programme.
“Our import bill on non-essential items is too high and this needs to be addressed.
“Without industry our economy is grounded so consumers also need to understand the Buy Zimbabwe initiative from that perspective,” she said.
According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency in January alone Zimbabweans imported goods worth $400 million compared to $482 million in December last year.
The trend indicates a 17,3 percent drop in the monthly import bill.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries Manicaland chairman, Mr Richard Chiwandire said such positive developments could only be realised through the Buy Zimbabwe drive and Government’s continued strides to introduce a raft of measures to reduce the import bill and close in on smuggling of cheap imports through the country’s porous borders.
Mr Chiwandire added that regardless of Zimbabwe being a signatory to regional trade agreements, in past years other countries like South Africa have introduced conflicting internal trade policies to support their local industry, and Zimbabwe should do the same.
The imports for January were also 30 percent down compared to $519 million worth of goods and services purchased from external markets in January last year.
Exports for January were at $249 million compared with $220 million for December 2015 reflecting an 11,64 percent gain.
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