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Sikhulekelani Moyo, Business Reporter

The National Competitiveness Commission executive director Mr Philip Phiri  has urged the country’s leather sector to strive in becoming the global leader in the leather value chain by investing in modern technologies that would drive the industry forward.

 Mr Phiri said to attain such a status there is a need to invest and develop the appropriate technologies and interventions.

“They need to invest and work with academic and research institutions on developing the appropriate technologies and interventions, which can allow them to identify the niche that Zimbabwe needs to produce in the leather sector,” said Mr Phiri in an interview on the sidelines of a five-day Zimbabwe Leather Development Council (ZLDC) stakeholder’s indaba in Bulawayo last week.

Last week, ZLDC under SIPS held a five-day stakeholder engagement workshop in Bulawayo tackling various issues affecting the sector.

The sector occupies an important place in the Zimbabwean economy in view of its potential for higher employment, growth, and value-added exports.

Vision 2030 calls for the transformation of the country to attain middle-income status by the year 2030 and the leather sector is among the key sectors earmarked for transformation.

This has seen the Government and the private sector working together to provide a conducive environment, which will see the sector bearing fruits.

ZLDC chairman Mr Clemence Shoko said the sector has made positive strides on skills development, capacitation of players, and fostering development.

He said small emerging players are now embracing entrepreneurship which has created some positives in the economy including employment creation.

“We have very passionate stakeholders and Zimbabwe is enriched with people that have got skills in the production of leather and leather products.

“This is an area where most of our players, be it those that were employed by the yester-big companies, have embraced entrepreneurship to an extent that the players now have developed to be employers of today,” said Mr Shoko.

 He said the planned design studio, products to be churned out will make an impact in the international market.

“Yes, we have made positive strides and now with the design studio that is coming up, we are very sure that we will soon see designs that are in a position to counter any imports and generate revenue for this country and be a pride to our own country.”

The country is working closely with the Common Market for Southern Africa (Comesa), to establish the first modern Satellite Leather Design Studio as part of its effort to position itself for enhanced quality standards and scaling up output along the leather value chain.

Through its specialised unit, the Africa Leather and Leather Products (ALLPI), Comesa has provided funding to the Government to facilitate the development of this design studio, which is located at the Leather Institute of Zimbabwe (LIZ) in Bulawayo.

Mr Shoko said the design studio is a unique regional project where the satellite beams are linked to a design studio based in  Ethiopia, which is linked to international brands.

“So, when designing a product in Zimbabwe, that brand is then checked to make   sure that its perfect enough that international brands can absorb the product because it would have been designed to perfection  with qualities that suit the export market,” he said.

“The design studio is already under implementation as we speak, it’s not yet 100 percent but we did some training in terms  of designing footwear, there is an international player who also visited us just a week or  two ago where they were introducing new trending soles that are going to transform the trend of footwear in Zimbabwe.” — @SikhulekelaniM1