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Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
FINANCE and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa has called for mobilisation of resources in pursuit of Sadc’s development agenda that is premised on leveraging on the region’s diverse resources to promote sustainable socio-economic development.

Officially opening the meeting of the Sadc Committee of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Bulawayo yesterday, Minister Chinamasa who is also the committee’s chairman, said the region’s development agenda was reflected during the Extraordinary Summit in Harare in April.

“This meeting is coming against the background where Sadc has clearly defined its development agenda.

“This development agenda is reflected through the adoption of the Sadc Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan: 2015-2020; and the industrialisation strategy and road map.

“Furthermore, the industrialisation and road map, resonates well with the current Sadc theme: Sadc Strategy for Economic Transformation, Leveraging the Region’s Diverse Resources for Sustainable Economic and Social Development through Value Addition and Beneficiation,” he said.

Minister Chinamasa however said there were binding constraints to such development agenda, which include among others, inadequate and poor quality infrastructure, a severe deficit of the skills required in the region and insufficient resources.

To overcome some of the constraints, he said requires resource mobilisation from local and external sources.

Minister Chinamasa said sustaining high levels of resources necessary for industrialisation requires among others that Sadc attends to strengthening and deepening of financial and monetary reforms, deepening capital markets through developing innovative financing vehicles as well as linking closely Sadc stock exchanges with the objective of creating a regional bourse.

Speaking at the same occasion, Sadc executive secretary Stergomena Lawrence Tax said good economic governance and macro-economic stability were critical elements and prerequisite for regional integration and development.