The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, Features Editor
FINANCE and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa on Thursday unveiled a $4,1 billion National Budget for 2017 outlining plans by Government to boost manufacturing industries and small businesses through pro-production interventions.
The budget’s pro-production thrust builds on existing interventions by Government to support local industry and boost productions across all sectors of the economy, chief among them manufacturing and agriculture.
Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016, popularly referred to as SI 64/2016 which was promulgated in June this year and the specialised Command Agriculture Project are such interventions that the 2017 budget will build on.
Ably supported, the two interventions can provide the tonic to the country’s economic challenges, in the short, medium and long term.
The theme of the budget statement, “Pushing Production Frontiers Across All Sectors”, aptly captures Government’s focus going forward.
Presenting the budget Minister Chinamasa proposed to increase the list of goods under SI 64, among a raft of other measures aimed at protecting local industry and stimulating domestic production and exports.
Minister Chinamasa proposed removal of wheat, flour, luggage ware and school uniforms from the Open General Import Licence.
He also proposed to increase customs duty on selected fabric, in order to protect the local textile industry from competition posed by cheap imported textiles.
The propositions come on the back of notable successes recorded after promulgation of SI 64/2016 earlier this year.
So far, 40 products are listed on SI 64/2016 and placing more goods on the import restriction list could come with more benefits for local industry and ultimately the national economy.
SI 64/64 stops the country from being a trader country to become a manufacturing country, a step in the right direction towards economic recovery.
It is the belief that with necessary support, the interventions by the Government will see the country finding its economic footing and be counted among the region’s exporters as well as its bread basket status in the Sadc bloc.
A report by Buy-Zimbabwe shows that demand for local goods increased notably, since the introduction of SI64, while the volume of imports has also declined after the introduction of the restrictions.
According to the report imports declined by eight percent from $429 million to 394 million in first two month of the introduction of SI64, compared to the same period in 2015.
There has also been a notable increase in prices of imported goods in most retail shops, as demand and consumption of locally produced goods reportedly increased following the introduction of import restrictions.
In view of such notable successes of SI 64/2016, one would hazard to say Minister Chinamasa is harping on the right tune by proposing to increase the list of goods placed on import restrictions.
The tune Minister Chinamasa is playing is one which everyone ought to dance to, if the country is to witness the envisaged economic recovery. His proposed interventions need all the necessary support.
Stimulating local production, boosts local industry and creates employment in the same breath, hence such interventions as SI 64/2016 need all the necessary support.
Criticism is welcome, on condition it is constructive. The country’s economy is in a critical state and needs to recover, thus retrogressive sentiments to recovery interventions are not welcome and should be treated with the contempt they deserve.
Another pro-production intervention by Government, prior to the 2017 budget, is the specialised Command Agriculture Project whose thrust is to boost local maize production and put paid to food security concerns.
The importance of agriculture to the country’s economy can never be overemphasised, hence any efforts to support the agricultural sector are welcome and should be supported.
Funded to the tune of $500 million, the Command Agriculture Project aims to produce two million tonnes of maize from 400 000 hectares of land, against an annual national grain demand of 1,8 million tonnes.
Command Agriculture will see the emergency of green belts, as new irrigation schemes will be established while old ones that have been lying idle will be resuscitated.
Under the project farmers who have access to land which is under irrigation will receive support from Government in terms of inputs.
Through Command Agriculture, the Government is not only seeking to feed the nation but also stimulating industry through creating raw materials. As such the envisaged impact of Command Agriculture on the country’s economy should not be understated.
Command Agriculture, if ably supported by local farmers and the general citizenry, will show the world just how serious Zimbabwe is in its fight against hunger.
Having emerged from previous bruising drought experiences in 1982, 1992, 2002 and now the Zimbabwean Government appears to have come out wiser, judging by the corrective steps being taken.
Read together, SI 64/2016 and the Command Agriculture Project one observes two possible tonics to the country’s economic woes.
These two interventions, to a large extent, set the tone for what should be done for the country to come out of the woods.
Other policies that come may need to hinge on these two, which are arguably the lynch pin to the country’s economic revival.
With industry operating to capacity and grain production boosted, the country can start worrying about other things.
President Mugabe’s State of the Nation (SONA) earlier this week, in which he highlighted SI64 and Command Agriculture sums up Government’s thrust and the importance of the two interventions to economic turnaround strategy.
