adminKudzanai Gerede
Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) will conduct two training programmes for Manicaland’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Mutare before year-end, in a move aimed at improving quality of products and services in this global economy. The initiative is in line with SAZ’s vision to help small businesses uphold world class standards in carrying out their businesses if they are to penetrate the mainstream local and regional markets as they expand and also demystify standards.
In an interview on the sidelines of Millennials Economic Forum in Harare, SAZ director-general Dr Eve Gadzikwa, said SMEs were the future of any country’s economy as the ultimate goal was for them to grow into large entities to create employment, hence helping them produce quality products would guarantee the fruition of this goal.
“We have identified the SMEs as the future of Zimbabwe and one of the things that we have done is we have partnered with developmental organisations to run a training programme.
“We have been trained ourselves and have realised a programme tailor-made for SMEs with hope that we will be able to reach out to them.
“We want to break down and simplify it so that our SMEs will benefit given that the cumulative effect of embracing standards will make them able to service the local market and also find export markets in a competitive global economy,” she said.
She said SAZ would conduct two training workshops in each of the country’s provinces, with each workshop targeting 100 small business owners and they have chosen Manicaland to be the first beneficiary of the programme.
“So far we are starting with Manicaland, where we are going to be having at least 100 individuals undergoing training.
“We will do the same across the country. We will have two training programmes in each province. We hope it will be beneficial to many SMEs,” she added.
Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises Cde Sithembiso Nyoni said it was important for entrepreneurs to uphold values of ethics and earnest to ensure growth of their businesses by attracting serious investors to partner them.
She said the indigenisation law was there to ensure that small businesses grow and then later partner foreign investors for their expansion and not for foreigners to start building businesses from the ground without locals having any threshold.
“We want to train entrepreneurs for growth and indigenisation should encourage our people to start their own things and then call foreigners to help with growth not otherwise,” she said.
Online Reporter