The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo ,Senior Business Reporter
ONE of the country’s leading packaging products manufacturer and supplier, Polyfoil has set its sights on exploring the export market as it bids to expand its sales base and mitigate the effects shortage of foreign currency.
Polyfoil managing director Mr Brendan Beaumont said the company was contemplating making its maiden exports to Zambia.
The Bulawayo-based company is into manufacturing of a host of plastic packaging products.
“We have not got export orders right now but we are aggressively looking at exports for obviously the reasons of foreign currency so we have just recently done trips to Zambia and we are looking at other countries around us as well just to get some foreign currency. So we are actively going for it,” said Mr Beaumount.
He said the company was also exploring opportunities of tapping into Mozambique and Malawi markets.
“That’s a very competitive market, bringing in a US (United States) dollar pricing from here to compete with a devaluing Kwacha or Metical makes it competitive,” said Mr Beaumont.
He said a depressed local market and the prevailing foreign currency shortage for the importation of strategic raw materials was threatening the company’s viability.
“We are certainly not at capacity but we have shown growth in our volumes year on year but still a fair way to go, obviously depressed local customers, in some cases raw materials issues in terms of foreign currency. All those contribute to not being able to run at maximum demand but we are showing signs of growth which is encouraging,” said Mr Beaumont.
He said the company’s capacity utilisation was hovering between 55 to 57 percent. The company imports virtually all its raw material from South African firms and depleted nostro accounts by local financial institutions was impacting negatively on their business.
“All of our raw materials are imported. We import mainly from South Africa from companies like Sasol and Safripol. Plastic is a by-product of oil so there are is no facility in Zimbabwe to make the raw materials . . . we have polythene, printing inks, plastic colourings, so we are very dependent on imports and foreign currency. There are some local distributors from whom we buy from time to time but they also import so it’s a challenge all the time. We don’t get credit, we have to pay upfront so it’s a bit difficult,” said Mr Beaumount.
Early this year the country’s largest industrial lobby group, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, highlighted that importers of raw materials were not being prioritised in the allocation of foreign currency with some banks accused of processing payment for trinkets ahead of critical raw materials. Mr Beaumount however, expressed satisfaction at the commitment shown by commercial banks and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in their efforts to address the issue of foreign currency shortage so as to enable manufacturers to import strategic raw materials.
“Commercial banks are doing very well, they are campaigning aggressively with the RBZ. We have seen some letters from RBZ asking for information from us as manufacturers. I think they are starting to become more proactive than we are aware of,” said Mr Beaumount.
He said over the years rampant power outages used to impact negatively on their production but that has since been rectified.
Mr Beaumont said the Government’s import management programme which saw the removal of certain targeted products from the Open General Import Licence had helped the company to retool.
“We have certainly seen recovery of some of the markets and we continue to push and we continue to use that to help us grow our manufacturing base with more up to date equipment so it has helped.”
The gazetting of Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016 in June 2016 saw the removal of 43 products from the Open General Import Licence. This measure has already begun to yield positive results in the local industry. Polyfoil started operations in 1964 as a sole trader and ventured into manufacturing in 1985. The company has a workforce of 52 employees. It also has a distribution centre in Harare.
@DNsingo
