The Sunday News
Roberta Katunga, Senior Business Reporter
THE Government is in the process of rectifying the tourism sector’s position as an export industry after it was initially omitted from the listing of exporting sectors that have been prioritised in distribution of foreign currency by financial institutions.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Dr John Mangudya said omitting the tourism and hospitality sectors was an anomaly as the central bank recognised tourism as an exporting sector that needs imported inputs to produce world class products and services.
“There is no doubt that the best performing sector in terms of foreign revenue generation is the tourism sector having raked in more than US$1 billion in 2015. It is anomalous that in the recent listing of exporting sectors that need to be supported in terms of imported inputs, tourism and hospitality were omitted,” said Dr Mangudya.
In May, the RBZ announced a cocktail of measures among them coming up with a priority list to guide banks in the distribution of foreign currency towards competing demands.
Some of those in the priority list that excluded the tourism and hospitality sector included net exporters who import raw materials or machinery to aide them to produce and generate more exports, non-exporting importers of raw materials and machinery for local production (value addition) that directly substitute import of essential finished goods as well as imports of critical and strategic goods such as basic food stuffs and fuel, health and agrochemicals that are not available locally.
Zimbabwe Council for Tourism president Mr Francis Ngwenya said after lobbying for this development, the tourism sector welcomed the move saying it would help increase the sector’s performance and contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“Tourism stimulates growth and creates employment thus supporting it increases its performance and contribution to the economy. According to the UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Oganisation) ratio, one top end good quality tourist creates one to eight jobs down the line.
“We therefore welcome the rectification of that anomaly,” said Mr Ngwenya.
He said other areas of concern were incentives to tourists, urging the Government to create incentives similar to VAT refunds as well as improving on access.
“Although much has been done on the visa regime, we still have some visas that restrict and prevent us from growing tourism. We would like to appeal to the Government to open our gates to tourists so as to grow our sector,” he said.
Mr Ngwenya said there was a need to also improve the number of rooms especially in Victoria Falls.
Recently the Government announced the setting up of a tourism revolving fund meant to assist in the upgrading of existing facilities in the country to meet international standards as well as construction of new ones.
“The growth of tourism has been hampered by low investment in new and existing tourism facility mainly because of lack of financial resources. The solution to this situation is a National Revolving Fund, from which tourism businesses can access financing at reasonable rates and terms that take the nature of the business into account,” said Dr Mangudya while confirming the setting up of the fund.
Twitter:@robertakatunga
