Zimpapers Logo

Deputy Minister Chiratidzo Mabuwa

Senior Business Reporter
INDUSTRY and Commerce Deputy Minister Chiratidzo Mabuwa is in Bulawayo for a marathon tour of the city’s industries today where she will meet top performing entities with the view of assisting them in attracting investment and exports. Once the industrial hub of the country, Bulawayo has in the past few years been adversely affected by massive de-industrialisation caused mainly by illegal sanctions imposed on the country by the West.

Shoe Pack Leather and Rubber, Corronet Buttons, Kango Products, Wetblue Industries, Viva Marketing and National Blankets are some of the companies the deputy minister will tour.

“I’ll be leading a delegation to tour Bulawayo industries on the 27th of April. The objective of the tour is to get an appreciation of what the companies are doing,” said Mabuwa.

She said during her tour of Bulawayo firms sometime in February, some companies said they had success stories that had not been reported by the local media.

“This information is critical in attracting foreign direct investment hence this tour is meant to get an appreciation of the Bulawayo industries’ success stories,” said Mabuwa.

In the past company executives pointed out that they were facing operational constraints among them liquidity challenges, intermittent power supplies and competition from imported products as well as obsolete plant and equipment.

Mabuwa said the government was working on industrial and policy frameworks aimed at restoring Bulawayo as Zimbabwe’s industrial hub.

“When we came in February, we were briefed of the operational challenges companies are facing and as government we’re working on addressing those issues at policy and enterprise level. Those issues are now being considered by my principals and once a decision has been taken, it’ll be announced,” she said.

According to the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector last year declined to 36.3 percent from 39.6 percent in 2013.