Zim has great economic potential

BY GRAIL KUPAKUWANA

Zimbabwe has great economic potential and can regain its lost glory and become a giant economic hub. Various regional and international keynote guest speakers at the recent American Business association of Zimbabwe are positive about the future, but could not give a recovery time framework owing to the political instability in the country.

Amanda Hilligas, Director of Southern Africa Global Competitiveness Hub, Trade Competitiveness Project believes Zimbabwe has the potential to benefit from four areas of focus: Trade and investment enabling environment, private sector competitiveness, modern energy, and transport services.

A number of critical factors and challenges have to be addressed before the economy can begin to revive and benefit from targeted economic regional development projects such as the African Growth Opportunities Act {AGOA}established in 2003 under the TRADE initiative funded by the United States.

” Zimbabwe has to first establish the rule of law and political pluralism and make great efforts Your browser may not support display of this image.to combat corruption, protect human and worker’s rights, eliminate certain child labour practices and strive for a market-based economy,” Hilligas said.

Hilligas said the Global Hub had facilitated more than US$47 million in new trade deals between Southern African countries and the United States, supported more than 40 companies to attend trade shows and events in the United States and has arranged regional Business to Business events yielding about US$8 million trade with success stories recorded in Zambia, South Africa, Lesotho, Kenya, Botswana and Mozambique

The organisation is the region’s one-stop shop for business and national governments seeking to take advantage of AGOA.

Hilligas said AGOA also seeks to marketing Africa as a source of business and the repeated presence of African companies raises credibility and creates networking opportunities with high value experiences for buyers and sellers.  

” The gold payment arrangement, the artificial exchange rate, power blackouts, shortage of spares and forex and low investor confidence is affecting the mining industry,” Collen Gura, Chief Executive Officer of Metallon Gold Zimbabwe Ltd., told the meeting.    

A leading Zimbabwean businessman who requested anonymity said it was difficult for Zimbabwe to pull out of this crisis if Zanu (PF) continued in its power retention project against the will of the people.

“Under the present circumstances the MDC economic recovery path is the only viable option,” he said.

“The MDC government is committed to the creation of an environment that is conducive to business by implementing supply-side measures that will make Zimbabwe one of the best countries in which to do business on the African continent. By its constant resistance to regime change, the corrupt Zanu (PF) leadership is scuttling these efforts to the detriment of the nation at large.”