Business Reporter
CAPTAINS of industry yesterday pledged to increase their synergies with raw material producers particularly farmers as part of a drive to buttress value addition and broadening opportunities in the economy.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) president and United Refineries chief executive officer Mr Busisa Moyo told delegates attending the organisation’s annual congress in Bulawayo that industry revival was hinged on a robust agricultural revolution.
He said CZI would push this drive to assist the country to re-industrialise and boost economic development.
“CZI continues to provide private sector-thought leadership that will assist in re-industrialisation and set precedence for economic development. It has to be accepted that few nations have reached their social or economic aspirations without some form of industrialisation,” said Mr Moyo.
“Whether it’s Singapore with its shipyards, Argentina with its beef industry …this gives me hope that industrialisation isn’t a remote possibility but it’s something that we can achieve.”
This year’s CZI congress is running under the theme, “Strengthening value chains for sustainable industrialisation and economic development”.
Mr Moyo said the theme was hinged on the need to recognise and strengthen value chains within the manufacturing sector.
He said Zimbabwe’s industry was anchored on the agricultural output and that is why CZI recognised the need to look at strengthening value chains.
“Our industries rest on the bedrock of agricultural production, without agricultural output there are no industries to talk about. As CZI we’ve recognised the need to look beyond the machines that run in our factories and look to the sources of the raw materials that we process in our factories,” he said.
Earlier this year, CZI identified 18 value chains and the industrial representative body would continue expanding the list as a guide to research based on existing companies.
He noted that a number of such companies were operating in low scale output or broken value chains.
“The majority of value chains are steeped in some form of agricultural production base or an extractive industry. Infrastructure becomes necessary if there’s a private sector to support and the pressure to rebuild the infrastructure comes when there are value chains that are demanding infrastructure,” he said.
Mr Moyo said focus on value chains did not mean that CZI was ignoring the present challenges facing industry as such issues would be discussed.
Despite the support industries were getting from the Government, he said CZI was not resting on support from the Government.
Last month, the Government promulgated Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016, which removes several goods from the Open General Import Licence to control imports.
“We’re clear that such support is time bound as industry contrary to popular belief we’re not resting on support from the Ministry of Industry.
“We recognise that this is time bound and we must run fast to be competitive and not to be competitive locally but to be competitive in terms of exports,” he said.