JOHANNESBURG Despite the economic decline that has spanned the past decade and threatened to destroy the retail industry, Pick n Pay, the South African company that owns a 25 per cent stake of in Zimbabwes TM stores, has registered an improvement in business. The company revealed to The Zimbabwean this week that since the economic shift from the value-less Zimbabwean dollar to the adoption of the US$ and the South African rand, business has been bettering by the day.
We have noticed an improvement in trading, and while we know much of this is attributable to dollarisation (stores are now able to use foreign currency collected at the tills to re-stock) it is not possible to say definitively if the GNU had a direct bearing on this, said Dallas Langman, Director of Group Enterprises at Pick n Pay.
Langman added that his company would continue to resource its shareholding at TM, but would not reveal more.
We are currently reviewing our operations and possible expansion into Africa, but are unable to divulge any detail at this point. Before the dollarisation of the economy most supermarkets were finding it difficult to cope, however, President Robert Mugabes operation to reduce prices of basic commodities sounded a death knell to the viability of most distressed companies.
Post published in: Economy