THE inaugural National Competitiveness Baseline Survey has been described as a key instrument that will ground policy in local realities, enable objective performance tracking and guide national priorities towards economic transformation, officials have said.
This comes as the National Competitiveness Commission (NCC) and the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) officially released the findings of the 2025 National Competitiveness Baseline Survey.
The survey provides Zimbabwe’s first locally grounded framework to assess enterprise performance and operational constraints on a 0-to-100 scale, ranging from zero for the most severe constraints to 100 for maximum productivity.
It measures national competitiveness across four interconnected dimensions: innovativeness, inclusiveness, sustainability and resilience.
The initiative replaces external evaluation tools such as the discontinued World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index and the World Bank Ease of Doing Business reports, which previously provided comparative statistics for the country.
As Zimbabwe’s first-ever domesticated baseline survey measuring economic competitiveness across four key pillars, 10 provinces and 16 sectors, the report establishes a crucial national benchmark while highlighting critical vulnerabilities facing the productive sector.
Zimbabwe recorded an initial baseline competitiveness score of 58,5 out of 100, positioning its national economic performance as “moderate.”
Across all presentations during the presentation, key speakers identified evidence-based planning and data utilisation as the single most critical national requirement for driving the National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2 2026–2030) and achieving Vision 2030 upper-middle-income status.
Ministry of Industry and Commerce chief director Mrs Florence Makombe, representing Permanent Secretary Ambassador Tadeous Chifamba, said competitiveness was essential to national economic growth.
“A competitive economy attracts productive investments, supports efficient firms, expands domestic production, strengthens value addition and beneficiation,” Mrs Makombe said.
She urged stakeholders to treat the findings as strategic planning metrics.
“Competitiveness indicators are not intended to assign blame or prevent a verdict on the economy; they are management tools that help us to recognise our strengths, identify our gaps and agree on our priorities,” Mrs Makombe said.
“Let us therefore use this survey to move from measuring competitiveness to managing it.”
ZimStat director-general Mrs Tafadzwa Bandama said the survey provides the empirical base necessary to guide industrial policy and monitor development progress.
“Today marks an important milestone in strengthening the evidence base for understanding and improving Zimbabwe’s competitiveness,” Mrs Bandama said.
“The survey was conducted to provide valuable information on factors influencing the operating environment for businesses and the broader competitiveness of our economy.”
She stressed that the baseline statistics require direct implementation across public and private sectors.
“However, these statistics will only acquire value when they are understood, when they are also utilised and translated into action,” Mrs Bandama said.
“I therefore encourage policymakers, the private sector and development partners, including researchers, to interrogate the findings and consider what they mean for their respective mandates.”
NCC acting executive director Mr Brighton Shayanewako highlighted the necessity of filling the statistical gap left by suspended global ranking systems.
“For many years, Zimbabwe’s assessment of competitiveness relied substantially on international indices and externally generated benchmarks… So we had a gap in terms of statistics,” Mr Shayanewako said.
“For us, the commission, our mandate is to facilitate the creation of an open business environment that is competitive.”
Mr Shayanewako noted that the localised data provides an ongoing framework for evaluating economic reforms and productivity improvements.
“The National Competitiveness Baseline Survey represents an important step towards enabling Zimbabwe to assess its competitiveness using evidence that reflects local realities while remaining relevant to regional and international benchmarking,” Mr Shayanewako said.
“A baseline is valuable; it also enables future assessments to determine whether the operating environment is improving.”
The survey findings will be integrated into national budgeting, performance management, and regional trade strategies under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and COMESA.-herald
