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Senior Business Writer

BUY Zimbabwe  Campaign chairman, Mr Munyaradzi Hwengwere has underscored the need for the country to reduce its import bill and strive to ensure that public procurement begins to favor locally made products.

Speaking during the 13th Annual Buy Zimbabwe awards held in Harare last Friday, Mr Hwengwere noted that based on the Buy Zimbabwe 2023 Annual Report, in the past four years, the country’s cumulative trade deficit is at US$6,8 billion dollars.

Over that period, imported products and services have been to the value of US$31 billion against exports of US$21 billion.

“We must take steps to reduce the import bill.  We must complete the work to ensure that our public procurement begins to favour made in Zimbabwe products, with defined local content thresholds,” said Mr Hwengwere.

“We must push our treasury to incentivize companies who invest in local content. We must act now in order to ensure that opportunities that arise from the African continental free trade area do not skip us,” he added.

The awards were held for the first time in partnership with the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

The Minister of Industry and Commerce Dr Mangaliso Ndlovu who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry Dr Thomas Utete Wushe praised  the partnership between the government and Buy Zimbabwe in the promotion of the growth of competitive industrial and commercial enterprises in the economy.

Minister  Ndlovu said the Ministry is working closely with organisations such as Buy Zimbabwe as it implements its mandate to develop and promote the growth of competitive industrial and commercial enterprises in the economy.

He added that the Ministry’s partnership with the Buy Zimbabwe Campaign is in line with the government’s strategic focus under the National Development Strategy 1 (2021-2025) under the Moving the Economy up the Value Chain and the Structural Transformation pillar which seeks to develop and implement policy initiatives that promote value addition and beneficiation and the domestication of key value chains.

The Ministry has developed and is currently implementing the Local Content Strategy that is anchored on stimulating the development of the local industry, value and supply chains as well as promoting local linkages amongst the agricultural, extractive, industrial and service sectors.

Among the notable winners were Adam Bede who scooped the Quality Award accolade, National Foods which came first in the Manufacturer of the Year (FMCG), Pfuko Mahewu which won the Product of the Year Award and National Foods which won the Company of the Year Award.

The awards adjudication committee chairperson,  Mr Sifelani Jabangwe said the awards still present a barometer of the performance of local value chains and is a key stepping stone into the Africa Continental Free Trade Area ( AfCFTA) that beckons for local firms.

The adjudication process involved rating of submitted adjudication forms and research into the performance of the nominated companies and products.

“We were impressed with the quality of the submissions and believe this bodes well for the development of local content and the industrialisation agenda. Already industry is talking about the Fourth Chimurenga to Industrialise, Mechanise and Modernise our economy,” he said.

The AfCFTA is one of the flagship projects of ‘Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want’ and provides a framework for increased regional production and exports.

By eliminating barriers to trade in Africa, the objective of the AfCFTA is to significantly boost intra-Africa trade, particularly trade in value-added production and trade across all sectors of Africa’s economy.

Zimbabwe is one of the pioneer countries that embraced the AfCFTA, which offers a huge market estimated at trillions of US dollars with more than 1,2 billion people.