Buy Zimbabwe has urged the government to actively promote the increase in local content as a matter of urgency to help reduce dependence on imports in sectors like mining.
Speaking to Great Dyke News 24, Buy Zimbabwe Chairman Munyaradzi Hwengwere said the mining order book should be reduced to fifty percent from the current seventy-eight percent sourced outside the country to promote local content.
“We are between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, our trade is still in favour of imports but on the other hand our local Zim dollar is threatening to go over a tipping point.
“So whilst full dollarisation is dangerous, it’s also critical to work out emergency measures to serve the
Zimbabwe dollar.
“What do we do? In our view as Buy Zimbabwe, the way out is to increase local content as a matter of urgency. We must reduce our dependence on imports, particularly in the mining sector,
where indications are that 78% of the mining order book is used to order imports. If we can reduce that to 50%, it will save the appetite for imports.
“Mining companies should work with the local manufacturing capacity to ensure that it is increased perhaps that way we save the dollar or utilise the US dollar that we have in a much more effective way to only import what is critically needed in this country. So it’s about local content,” he said.
He added that there is need for the provision of incentives to local companies that have increased their local content
“Others are confusing local content with foreign currency retention, the two are very different. Local content and foreign currency retentions are totally different things.
“We need to provide incentives for companies that have increased their local content for mining companies and tax breaks and all that is within the realm of government to direct resources to be spent in ways that increase jobs and the ways that protect the Zimbabwe dollar, in ways that ensure that the amount of foreign currency that we have in the country is used for productive use,” he said.
The mining industry procures a diverse range of inputs including protective clothing, consumables, explosives, transport vehicles, drilling, and construction materials, most of which could be produced at home.
Buy Zimbabwe Campaign has been at the forefront of advocating for the manufacturing and
consumption of local goods to stimulate economic growth.
