Online Reporter
Judith Phiri, [email protected]
THE Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mangaliso Ndlovu has said Government will set up a multi-layered policy framework to support local industry, centering on localisation and import restrictions.
The development comes at a time there is need to support local production which has been recording a growth and enhancing value addition to drive economic growth towards Vision 2030.
Speaking after a tour of Pump and Steel Suppliers plants in Bulawayo, the Minister said the Government was incentivising local manufacturing to reduce import reliance.
“For these tours we are picking up from where we ended last year, visiting our industry and we wanted to start 2026 by visiting Bulawayo. Today we are in the iron and steel value chain where Pump and Steel Suppliers, an indigenous company formed around 25 years ago is operating here in Bulawayo.
“For a number of years, they have been importing most of their raw material from South Africa and China, but with the coming in of Dinson Iron and Steel Company, l can see they have begun to buy local most of their raw materials,” he said.
“There are still some raw materials that they (Pump and Steel Suppliers) are importing because Dinson is yet to produce those and I know they are in the process also of bringing more equipment so that they are able to supply most of our needs.”
He said at a policy level, there was need to catch up on a number of areas where the raw materials are levied on duty but when bringing in a finished product it’s duty free because at some point the country was not manufacturing them.
However, Minister Ndlovu said there was need to now safeguard the local industry.
“A lot of our major investors prepare to import the reinforcement steels and other steel products from their home countries, yet a company like Pump and Steel and a couple of others are manufacturing them locally, as a result it’s affecting our capacity utilisation.
“We believe that surely for a country to say it is fully benefiting from foreign direct investment (FDI), we need to see how they are supporting local industries,” he added.
“So, we will be engaging them and we will also be looking at how we can adjust our policy so that we both incentivise but also we restrict import of what we are able to manufacture.”
He commended Pump and Steel Suppliers for also producing mining equipment, stating that they will engage the Chamber of Mines Zimbabwe to see if it’s possible for most of the mining companies to procure locally.
