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Busisa Moyo

Lovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) says a four-year guaranteed government protection from cheap imported goods would be enough for local firms to recover and be competitive.

The local industry continues to suffer from a plethora of challenges among them lack of working capital, stiff competition from imports, high interest rates from financial institutions as well as antiquated equipment.

Addressing delegates attending the ongoing CZI conference in Gweru yesterday, the industry body’s president, Busisa Moyo, said premature opening of the country’s borders, in the context of regional integration, to foreign products will expose the local industry especially at a time when the United States dollar is firming against regional currencies.

Moyo said opening the country’s borders will leave Zimbabwe a supermarket of foreign products.

“We’re very grateful as business from the support that we’ve received from the government. We would like to see that support extending to other sectors. However, I wish to highlight that this support is time-bound.

“We’re not asking for a ticket to be forever protected, to be forever on tariffs, to be forever on duties, we’re asking for a time period of between 36 to 48 months, a general window or consensus and it differs from industry to industry,” said Moyo.

“So we’re asking for that time period so that we can regain and reclaim our competitive edge and begin to participate in global trade and trade that’s balanced and fair. If we open up our gates today, we’re a target because we’re using the United States dollar and the

South African Rand and most currencies in the region are depreciating. Therefore we become an economic target. This is the reason we want time-bound support for local support before integration.”

The CZI president also called on the government to expedite re-engagement efforts with the international community especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which he said is used as a benchmark to assess a country’s investment climate.

“As Zimbabwe we’re serious about growth and we want our place at the table and the first table is the IMF table. This is important because we may not like them but the IMF are a leading indicator to other investors and as long as they’re absent and as long as they’re negative and as long as they’ve issues with us we’ll find ourselves at the back of the queue,” he added.

The industry congress, which kicked off on Wednesday is being held under the theme: “Unlocking manufacturing competitiveness.”

Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to officially close the indaba tomorrow.