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Senior Business Reporter

BUY Zimbabwe has set up a local content office as part of measures to promote and buttress the need to procure local goods and services and deepen local value chains.

In a statement today, Buy Zimbabwe General Manager Mr Alois Burutsa said the establishment of the local content office follows a Public Procurement conference in July.

The conference was held in partnership with the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) and ran under the theme “Unlocking Zimbabwe’s economic potential through public procurement.”

Mr  Burutsa said the conference underlined the need to put implementation mechanism to ensure that public tenders are directed to entities with high local content in line with the national industrialisation drive.

Since 2011 Buy Zimbabwe has been spearheading a campaign to promote local procurement and consumption of locally produced goods.

“Buy Zimbabwe establishes local content office Buy Zimbabwe has established a local content office as part of efforts to ensure that local content policy gets traction as well as to deepen local value chains.

“The local content office comes after another milestone partnership between Buy Zimbabwe and Business Standards and Systems Certification to ensure verification of local content,” he said.

He added that Buy Zimbabwe will be working very closely with the secretariat for local content steering committee under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

To facilitate the work of the local content office with members and stakeholders, Buy Zimbabwe has employed a local content officer, Mr Sebastian Sibanda, a founder and graduate of budding incubation hubs in Zimbabwe.

“In his new assignment, he is expected to work closely with the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, to ensure alignment on the need for Zimbabwe to reduce dependency on imports,” said  Mr Burutsa.