Cairns Foods eyes regional export market

Cairns

Enercy Mapakame, Business Reporter
CAIRNS Foods says it is eyeing the regional export market by year 2019 and 2020 as it seeks to boost its revenue streams and foreign currency earnings.

Chief executive Nancy Guzha told exporters at a ZimTrade annual exporters’ conference in Harare that the company’s turnaround strategy included exporting into neighbouring countries such as Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi and also benefit from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s five percent export incentive.

Guzha said the company was working towards enhancing production and competitiveness to satisfy the domestic market before venturing into exports.

“We are looking at exporting our products by 2019 to 2020. Our strategy, however, is that we should first satisfy the local market before we can venture into regional market,” she said.

Guzha however bemoaned the high cost of production in Zimbabwe, which still erodes the price competitiveness of locally manufactured goods on the regional market.

In addition to that, the cost of borrowing, she said, was high and this results in increased cost of production.

The RBZ in a bid to reduce the cost of borrowing, reduced interest rates from around 35 percent at dollarisation to 12 percent per annum.

“Although the Ministry (Industry and Commerce) is helping us as manufacturers, we still have a big burden due to competitiveness especially on pricing,” she said.

Last year, Cairns commissioned a new plant at its Mutare branch for baked beans as part of efforts to revive the company that had been facing viability challenges of late.

From 2012 to 2015, Cairns operated under judicial management.

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