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PRESIDENT Mugabe was spot on when he told the just ended Sadc summit in Victoria Falls that there was need for mutual benefit from intra-regional trade. He said that regional trade should not be one sided, implying that countries should have some modicum of equality as far as trade among Sadc countries is concerned. The President noted that as the southern African region moved towards liberalisation of the markets, it was also critical to prioritise value-addition and beneficiation of primary products.

With globalisation an inevitable reality, the President was on point that South Africa should use its sophisticated industrial base to help its peers to build capacity.
Nothing can be further from the truth that the region would never attain remarkable prosperity where trade relations are not reciprocal and dominated by one country.

The majority of countries in the region, Zimbabwe included, are largely recipients of products from South Africa and this does not augur well for sustainable regional development.

Mutual or reciprocal trade and economic relations in the Sadc region is also critical for regional stability to prevent shocks associated with dynamics in other major global markets.

The entire region needs to grow and develop in the same stride and South Africa possesses the resource and technical expertise its friends in the region need to catch up with.

Globalisation is an inevitable reality, but to stake a strong claim in the cut-throat competition of international trade, the Sadc region must fully develop its comparative advantages.

Regional countries cannot afford to fully liberalise their markets without first having built the capacity and sophistication to compete on an equal footing with the rest of the world.

While it makes natural sense for South Africa to help its peers to develop their industries, it is also incumbent upon the countries themselves to make effort to create conditions conducive for the growth and development of competitive industries.

For Zimbabwe, it is of paramount importance that the country is not left behind. As such, the country needs to move with haste to attract investment into its secondary industries.

To that end, fresh capital is needed to revive and start up Greenfield projects involved in beneficiation and value addition of the country’s abundant primary commodities.

Such investment would ensure the country moves away from being a net importer as this would address the capacity constraints being faced by local companies.
At the moment, Zimbabwe’s competitiveness is grossly discounted due to high operating costs caused by the use antiquated machinery, high utility and costs and lack of affordable long term funding or credit, making local products prohibitively expensive.

The constrained production capacity has seen the country being a mere consumer of foreign goods.
With liberalisation of regional markets in the horizon, the country would continue exporting jobs and struggle to grow to reduce poverty.

Industrial capacity showed strong signs of recovery post dollarisation of the economy in 2009, rising from averages of 10 percent to a high of 57 percent in 2011, but had fallen to consistently to an average of 39,6 percent by end of last year.