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Policy for 2011 to 2015.
The director in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Mr Stanislaus Mangoma, said the meeting has been set for tomorrow.
“The Industrial Development Policy draft document has been put in place and now awaits contributions from industry on what they want included in the policy,” he said.
Mr Mangoma added that the meeting will afford industry an opportunity to look at the weaknesses of the draft and how such weaknesses can be addressed.
He said they were expecting input from industry stakeholders such as the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries.
The ultimate vision of the industrial policy is to transform Zimbabwe from a primary producer into an exporter of value added goods.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti, when presenting the current budget in November last year, said the manufacturing industry should avoid the “entrapment of dependency on the production and export of raw materials”.
“Hence, it will be necessary that we propose measures in support of increased value addition of the country’s minerals and agricultural commodities, which is also a central tenet of our re-industrialisation strategy,” said Minister Biti.
The Industrial Development Policy aims at influencing an increase in the manufacturing sector’s contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product from the current 15 to 30 percent as well as boost exports from 26 to 50 percent by 2015 through a cocktail of measures.
Industry has in the last few years called on Government to come up with new policies to aid the recovery of the sector, which in the last decade suffered as a result of harsh macroeconomic conditions exacerbated by sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by Western countries.
Participants at the CZI congress last year noted that the lack of an industrial policy that spells out the framework of Government’s position on industry tended to affect productivity levels.
During a National Economic Consultative Forum business meeting in 2008, the then CZI president, Mr Callisto Jokonya, said there was need for a home-grown industrial policy that would take industry forward.
He said the absence of an industrial policy was one of the country’s shortcomings in ensuring industry’s growth.
At that time, Mr Jokonya said the industrial policy should identify 15 key products that it would fund and use as the cornerstone for industrial expansion.
Most of Zimbabwe’s neighbours have a distinct industrial policy in place while it has been difficult for Zimbabwe to formulate one owing to the economic challenges of the past decade.
South Africa’s industrial policy action plan aims at creating 350 000 jobs by 2020 in the manufacturing industries not already covered by other sectors.
It recognises the importance of creating an alliance between the Government and the business sector cemented by a common vision. – Business Reporter- Ziana.