Funding, competitiveness of local industry to dominate CZI congress

ALL is set for the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) annual conference that begins in Harare tomorrow with the major highlight being the launch of a US$300 million facility for the manufacturing sector.

This year’s conference will be held under the theme, “Glocalise”, meaning local firms must adapt to global trends.

In light of this year’s theme, the CZI has said the event will also deliberate how global events have impacted on the local industry, what the developments mean to Zimbabwean companies and how industry can navigate around the issues for competitiveness on the global arena.

CZI, which is Zimbabwe’s largest industrial representative body, has outlined that the first day of the three-day annual conference will this year focus on funding innovations.

“All is set for this year’s annual conference, which begins in Harare on Wednesday this week. Confirmed attendees at congress include large corporates, Government ministries, small to medium scale enterprises and members of the diplomatic community,” said a CZI official following an inquiry by this paper.

Canadian Chamber of Commerce senior research director, Ms Marwa Abdou and University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business director, Dr Catherine Duggan are part of five international speakers at the conference that will be officially opened by President Mnangagwa on Friday.

“Registration for exhibitions is also continuing with several start-ups having registered to exhibit at the ‘New Companies and New Products,’, running concurrently with the congress. The aim is to highlight to industry new products, technological advances and new companies on the market.

“Attendees can look forward to witnessing the launch of the digital network for business – to-business commerce, the US$200 million supply chain finance facility for raw materials and equipment, and the US$100 million investment and value chain programme,” said the official.

CZI chief executive officer, Ms Sekai Kuvarika, at a Press conference in Harare a fortnight ago, revealed that her organisation in partnership with Loita Capital and Raindew Trading were launching the above funding facility for industry financing, procurement of raw materials, equipment and working capital as well as possible investments into other value chains.

At the conference, topical discussions will also be on Zimbabwe’s’ global competitiveness in the face of African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) – and globalisation, the future of energy, funding for industrialisation, opportunities for pension fund investments and integrated value chain business models.

Under Zimbabwe’s economic reconstruction and recovery initiative, one of the major constraints affecting the local manufacturing sector is related to unlocking fresh lines of credit for retooling to boost individual firms’ operational capacity and efficiency.

The desire to retool by the manufacturing sector was on the back of obsolete plant and equipment that most firms were using, resulting in constant breakdowns of machinery affecting output and capacity utilisation.

It is against this backdrop that the Government has in recent years, also come up with several other financial packages to bail out local firms in their pursuit to retool and address working capital constraints.

CZI, which is Zimbabwe’s largest industrial representative body, in 2018 indicated that US$1,7 billion was required annually by the manufacturing sector for retooling.

Deliberations at this year’s CZI annual congress, will be on issues of geo-politics, geo-economics and the emerging trends across all the global dynamics and what these mean for Zimbabwean business and the economy at large.

In the aftermath of the Russia/Ukraine war, Zimbabwe has not been spared from the impact of the conflict in that part of the world on account that the two conflicting nations are the world’s suppliers of commodities such as petroleum and cereals like wheat and maize.

Resultantly, the supply of the above commodities remains subdued while demand is constant, triggering imported inflationary pressures world over.

The last day of the conference will focus on how industrialists and businesses build an effective economic growth coalition between themselves as the private sector and the Government.

CZI members are also, during the conference expected to learn how other governments and business have managed to collaborate effectively and input will also be on the key drivers of global competitiveness and derive lessons for application to the Zimbabwean situation.-ebusinessweekly