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Leonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter
GOVERNMENT will continue supporting the local sugar industry as it has a potential to sustain the economy, Industry and Commerce Minister, Mike Bimha, said yesterday.Addressing a conference of the Federation of Sadc Sugar Producers (FSSP) in Victoria Falls, Minister Bimha said Sadc sugar industries are under threat from cheap sugar products being dumped by world markets.
“We note with concern the recent shockwaves experienced in the industry as a result of cheap imported sugar from the regional and the world market which displaced some 100,000 tonnes of local sugar from the market,” he said.
“Government responded to the call by the sugar industry through appropriate protective measures and effectively sugar was removed from the General Import Licence list with a tax on sugar imports of $100 per tonne gazetted by the Ministry of Finance to cushion the local sugar industry from cheap imports.”
Minister Bimha said serious threats still remain which also affect employment and socio-economic development hence the need for government intervention at all levels.
“The government continues to develop policies that seek to attract foreign direct investment into Zimbabwe and the development of the sugar industry will result in the attraction of investors into the country as well as job security for Zimbabweans,” he said.
The conference is running under the theme “developing the sugar industry through empowerment programmes and sustainable private farming.”
Minister Bimha said Zimbabwe prides itself as being the pacesetter for empowerment in the region as it has implemented policies that seek to benefit its people since independence in 1980.
He said 813 indigenous sugar cane farmers benefited from the land reform and employ about 6,700 workers in their 16,000 hectares of land.
“If each worker has five dependants that means 35,500 people directly benefiting from the industry outside the 18,000 employed by Tongaat Hulett and 4,500 employed by Green Fuel who occupy 29,000 and 8,000 hectares of land respectively,” the Minister said.
He said the whole of Sadc was poised for expansion through the sugar industry hence the need for every member country to expand its own industry.
Minister Bimha said there was a need to build more irrigation facilities as water was key in the sector, adding that the industry also had a capacity to grow into an agro-tourism zone.
A representative of Tongaat Hulett, Sydney Mutsambiwa, said they were also geared to work with small scale sugar farmers to ensure they realise their full potential while in the bigger scale helping grow the economy.
He said they had and would continue planting seed capital for farming projects to that effect.
The conference, which is being attended by representatives from sugar industries in the Sadc region, ends today.
Online Reporter