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L8
OPENING REMARKS
BY
MR LANCE JENA
ZIMTRADE BOARD CHAIRMAN
AT THE ZIMTRADE ANNUAL EXPORTERS’ CONFERENCE
19 OCTOBER 2017
MEIKLES HOTEL, HARARE
THEME:
“BUILDING SYNERGISED PILLARS FOR EXPORT COMPETITIVENESS”
Energising Zimbabwe’s Export Growth
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Honourable Minister of Industry and Commerce,
Dr. M. C. Bimha
Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr. R. Ndhlukula, Secretary for Industry and Commerce Mrs. A. Shonhiwa, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Dr. J.P. Mangudya, International Experts here present Mr. D. Chamroo & Ms E. Oduor, Permanent Secretaries & Senior Government Officials here present, ZimTrade Board Members, ZimTrade Acting Chief Executive Officer, Mr. N. Savado, Management and Staff Captains of Industry and Commerce, Distinguished Exporters, Ladies and Gentleman;
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It gives me great pleasure, on behalf of the ZimTrade
Board, Management and Staff and on my own behalf, to
welcome you all to the 2017 ZimTrade Annual
Exporters’ Conference, which has rallied the
participation of a multi-stakeholder audience drawn from
the private sector, public sector, civil society, academia,
development cooperation partners and international
experts in specific areas relating to exports.
This year’s theme for the Conference is: “Building
Synergised Pillars for Export Competitiveness”. This
theme was developed in consultation with you, our
stakeholders and derives from issues that are currently
topical within industry today. The broader mandate for
us all is to shift the employment creation capacity in our
nation today from the administrative sector to the
productive sector.
The focus therefore, of the deliberations is designed, not
only to raise awareness on the need to interrogate
symbiotic collaborations for export competitiveness, but
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also to offer practical solutions towards the above broad
objective and mandate.
Our interactions with stakeholders confirm the
acknowledgement by industry in fulfilling the objectives
of the Value addition and Beneficiation cluster under the
ZIMASSET economic policy blueprint, which seeks to
promote value-added exports.
Distinguished Guests
Achieving competitiveness requires dialogue involving
all stakeholders, from the Government officials, the
Business Membership Organisations (BMOs),
development cooperation partners (DCPs) and
individual business organisations. For this reason, we
have invited to the Conference, all these stakeholders
as well as international experts on trade promotion to
participate in the formulation of initiatives to assist
Zimbabwe achieve this goal.
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As an overview of the road which we have travelled as a
nation, Zimbabwe’s trade deficit in 2015 was $3,5 billion
and this reduced to $2.4 billion in 2016. For the eight
months to August 2017, the trade deficit is $1.3 billion
($2 billion for 12 months).
Major export products in the period under review include
minerals (gold, nickel, ferro-chromium and industrial
diamonds), cane sugar, tobacco and black tea. These
products are mostly commodities and value added
products contribute a mere 15% of the exports
Ladies and Gentlemen
From similar discussions, at last year’s Conference, and
with the support of the Office of the President and
Cabinet (OPC), we adopted the 100 day Rapid Results
Initiative. This initiative identified the institutional
bottlenecks which militate against the growth of exports
and some of these factors include:
• Complex procedures administered by multiple
regulatory agencies
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• High costs of production
• Limited access to affordable long-term trade
finance, and
• centralisation of agencies in major cities.
The Rapid Results Initiative was launched on 12
December 2016 and two thematic working groups were
identified.
The first thematic working group focused on Export
Regulations, Procedures and Permits.
The second thematic group focused on Export
Capacity and this group sought to address challenges
which relate to supporting and building our SMEs and
other industries to become export ready.
I am happy to report that progress has been made as a
result of the RRI, though it has been slow. To date, there
are some Statutory Instruments have been amended.
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In this year’s Exporters’ Conference, we have also
invited a Managing Partner from CITC of Mauritius to
give us a presentation on the journey the country has
travelled and how they have become one of the key
reference countries in Africa regarding issues to do with
improving the ease of doing export business.
Ladies and Gentlemen
I am also happy to report on successes we have
achieved in collaboration with development cooperation
partners in the last year.
One of the low hanging fruits in our efforts to energise
exports is the potential that exists in agro-processing
and horticulture.
On 10 April 2016, ZimTrade signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with PUM, a group of Retired Senior
Experts from the Netherlands. This cooperation, I am
glad to report, continues to provide technical assistance
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to existing and potential exporters in agriculture,
agro-processing and other industries.
The objective of the PUM Programme is to enhance
productivity and competitiveness through the provision
of technical assistance targeting shop-floor management
systems, systems upgrade and capacity building
initiatives. These interventions are a direct response to
challenges industry is facing as they endeavour to
restore productivity and efficiencies in the enterprise
sector.
Distinguished Guests
Whilst these policy and advocacy initiatives have been
put in place to improve the business environment for
exporters, it remains incumbent upon all companies to
simultaneously build internal capacity for entry into the
highly competitive global export markets.
Cognisant of the fact that the “desire to export does not
equate to ability to export”, ZimTrade has identified three
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additional challenges starring at our SMEs and potential
exporters. These challenges include:-
• access to affordable trade finance, CAPEX and
Working Capital,
• Standards and Standadisation,
• Governance
ZimTrade would like to assure our constituency (the
exporters) that we will work to ensure that a solution is
found to these challenges.
With reference to the issues of affordable finance,
ZimTrade and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe are
taking steps to address that challenge.
With regard to standards and issues to do with quality
and how these facilitate trade, we have, in our midst, a
Standards and Quality resource person from Kenya, Ms.
Oduor, who will highlight to us learning points from the
Kenyan experience on the importance of Standards in
Trade and Exports.
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Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, I had the opportunity
of having a meeting the Acting President, Hon. E.D.
Mnangagwa. The mere acceptance by the Acting
President for us to have a meeting with his office is
testament that they not only believe in what we are
doing but the importance of the mandate we have
before us i.e. Energising Zimbabwe’s export growth. We
discussed at length most of the issues I have mentioned
here and more importantly the meeting was a
reaffirmation of the support government is and will give
us toward the implementation of our mandate.
In conclusion Ladies and Gentlemen, as said by Chris
Grosser a prominent business man, “Opportunities
don't happen. You create them." This is the reason
why we are here today to create opportunities by
identifying and interrogating synergised pillars for export
competitiveness.
After all is said and done colleagues, the Clarion call is
for us to export.
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Therefore, my advice is;
EXPORT OR EXPIRE!
INTRODUCTION OF THE GUEST OF HONOR
HONOURABLE DR. M. C. BIMHA
Coming to the final part of why I am standing before
you Ladies and Gentlemen
Today I have the rare honour and privilege to introduce
a very special guest, our Key Note Speaker for the 2017
Exporters’ Conference, who hardly needs an
introduction. However, for the benefit of the few that may
not quite know him, and for his own benefit, in case he
may have forgotten, I will present the following
information about him.
Hon. Dr. Michael Chakanaka Bimha was clearly a
bookworm as indicated by his many qualifications, which
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include a Bachelor’s degree in Administration, a
Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) degree from
the University of Zimbabwe and, more recently a PhD in
Strategic Human Resources from the Zimbabwe Open
University.
In a career spanning more than two decades in industry,
Hon. Bimha was a member and/or Chairman of various
corporate boards including NICOZ Diamond, Africa
Resources Ltd – RSA and SMM Holdings, to mention
but a few. He also sat on various parastatal boards
including Air Zimbabwe, NSSA and ARDA. He is a
former President of the Employers’ Confederation of
Zimbabwe (EMCOZ) and former President of the
Institute of Personnel Management of Zimbabwe
(IPMZ).
After distinguishing himself in industry, Mike joined
politics and became a Member of Parliament in 2008.
He was appointed and served his Ministerial
apprenticeship as Deputy Minister of Industry and
Commerce from 2008 to 2013. He obviously acquitted
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himself well, leading to his elevation to substantive
Minister of Industry and Commerce in 2013, a position
which he still holds today.
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is my singular honour, on behalf of the ZimTrade
Board, Management and Staff, to invite Hon. Dr. Mike
Bimha to present his Official Opening Address.
Hon. Bimha, I call upon you to please address the
delegates.
I THANK YOU.
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