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Midlands Correspondent
The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) has partnered Midlands State University (MSU) in setting up an entrepreneurship incubation hub to help nurture up-and-coming businesses.

Business incubators in some countries have been a catalyst for national and regional economic development.

CZI Midlands chamber president, Mr Mike Dzinoreva, said the incubation hub would offer technical support and other services to new businesses.

“The hub will assist with the establishment of new and up-and-coming businesses,” he said. “As you may be aware, a number of companies fail during the first three years of inception and this will try and support those up-and-coming businesses to survive, through technical support and a think tank that is going to support this hub.”

Mr Dzinoreva said they had also partnered local polytechnics to promote competitiveness through innovation.

“The Midlands chamber has partnered local tertiary institutions on research and development programmes to promote competitiveness through innovation,” he said. “Kwekwe and Gweru polytechnics are currently undertaking a survey on the list of companies in the Midlands chamber.

“The objective is to find out the challenges being encountered by the companies in terms of retooling requirements and possible turnaround strategies.”

In 2016, CZI partnered local academic institutions to do a research on the state of the Midlands industries.

The findings of the research and the recommendations, which are being done by Gweru and Kwekwe polytechnic colleges will be presented to the office of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Figures by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce show that the province faced 13 major company closures since 2009, which saw over 4 185 workers losing their jobs.

Some of the companies are Ziscosteel, Zimglass, Mike Appel and Lancashire Steel.