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Bulawayo Bureau
THE Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) in conjunction with the European Union, ZimTrade and the International Trade Centre are working together to assist small to medium enterprises to tap export markets. Godfrey Dube, head of marketing at SAZ said this at an SMEs workshop held at a local hotel yesterday where he addressed close to 100 entrepreneurs in conjunction with Old Mutual and MBCA bank.

“No growth can be achieved if companies in Zimbabwe continue to sell locally only. Instead, they’ll be turned into supermarkets of other countries where these countries keep bringing their produce to Zimbabwe,” he said.

“They can only compete if they follow certain standards like adhering to ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation), IEC (International Electro-technical Commission) and African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) standards.”

Dube said standards were not only checked on exports, but all imports were checked for conformity through the Consignment Based Conformity Assessment (CBCA) that was introduced by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to curb influx of hazardous and substandard imported products. CBCA went into full operation on March 1, 2016 under the French firm Bureau Veritas.

He explained that SAZ was not a regulatory authority and therefore cannot force firms to comply with standards but just encourages the use of these standards helps firms compete with larger international markets.

Small to Medium Enterprises and Co-operative Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni who was the guest of honour at the workshop concurred and urged all SMEs to comply so that they can be competitive on the world market.

“For micro, small to medium enterprises (MSMEs) to become active players in the mainstream value and supply chains, there’s need for conformity assessment and compliance to technical regulations and relevant standards,” she said.

“As much as we can promote access to markets for MSMEs, if MSMEs don’t comply with quality standards such efforts will be in vain.” Meanwhile, Old Mutual trained the workshop’s attendees in financial management.

The bank’s representative warned entrepreneurs against following ever-changing trends in technology saying this was a sure way of not achieving financial security.