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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.