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Business Reporter
The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries’ Midlands chapter has elected Steelmakers Zimbabwe Limited’s Matthias Ruziwa as its president. Mr Ruziwa is the human resources executive at Steelmakers as well as a Herald Business columnist. He was elected together with Sithokozile Rugube (finance director for Oliken Holdings) and Allan Manhanga (operations manager of Sable Chemicals), who will serve as vice presidents. Mr Ruziwa has over 15 years` experience in handling labour matters and is an independent arbitrator.

According to the chamber, his extensive knowledge and expertise is expected to boost the lobby group’s counsel as labour-related issues are among the areas of concern for industry.

CZI has over the past years been pushing for labour law reforms saying the current laws are inflexible to the economic environment.

Most companies have cited labour costs as the major drag on performance accounting for over 50 percent of company expenses.

Independent human resources consultant George Makwati said company closures prevalent at the momemt are mostly on the back of high labour costs which affect the price of local commodities, and this in turn makes them vulnerable to cheap imports.