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ZIMBABWE’s economic growth, and the employment and prosperity of an increasing percentage of the population, requires the rapid growth of the manufacturing sector in all its variety.

Agriculture can be the mainstay for a fixed number of people, but as populations grow, the percentage of the population farming will fall; there is only so much land.

The prosperity of farmers will grow as they make better use of their land and are able to grow more complex crops and get far higher yields, but their numbers will not rise.

Mining is a major driver of the economy in a resource rich country like Zimbabwe, and investors seem keen to push ahead and expand production, but again there are limits and modern mining will create thousands of new jobs, but not hundreds of thousands, and certainly not millions.

Retail is strong, but again there are limits. In many respects in Zimbabwe retail has reached many of the employment limits. A lot of the growth in this sector will come from tiny shops becoming bigger and small near-subsistence businesses becoming more prosperous rather than from vast numbers of new shops.

So manufacturing, where there are no limits, has to take up the strain and create the vast number of decent jobs and opportunities we need if we are going to become a proper middle-income country, one where the people are also middle income rather than having a few rich and a lot of poor producing the same average income.

So, while the Second Republic through its many interventions has been converting small-scale farmers from subsistence farmers scratching a living to business people looking at making profits, and while the investment policies of the Second Republic have been making mining investment attractive, and these grab the headlines, the industrialists have also been able to move forward.

A lot to begin with as President Mnangagwa was sworn in was simply getting closed factories open and factories limping along to make far better use of their capacity. These policies revolved around restricting the economy.

Industry had almost collapsed because first we had a mixture of hyperinflation and a flawed foreign exchange policy, and then we had dollarisation and local costs spinning out of control while imports became artificially cheap.

Using a currency stronger than that of our suppliers made imports cheaper and exports pricier and that was a disaster, as industrialists kept explaining. It also, in effect, meant we were importing more than we exported and while some of that could be hidden, it eventually led to near disaster.

The policies of reform in fiscal and monetary policy, despite some major difficulties, largely by people creating and exploiting opportunities for currency speculation, did create the situation we now see, where most of the goods and services we buy are local, not imported.

Manufacturers have been ramping up their businesses, new industries have been founded, some by Zimbabweans, some by external investors, with a lot of jobs created, not just preserved, but new people being hired in significant numbers.

When we talk about “Buy Zimbabwe” we are no longer talking about artificial fiddling of legal processes, but about using market forces. People buy Zimbabwean goods because they are cheaper, and the resurrection of heavy industry, such as the new steel works rising near Mvuma and other plans accelerating to get back into processing our cotton before export will make even more of a difference, allowing downstream industries to grow as well.

Now the Government is looking at using its own resources to push that process faster. The Government is the largest single economic entity in any country, and Zimbabwe is no exception so public procurement can be a major driver in the economy.

This might just be a possibility if the Government is only into keeping the wheels of administration running, a bit of buying for the odd replacement computer or vehicle or stationery or furniture but nothing dramatic for most businesses.

The driving force comes when government is into capital development, building and upgrading infrastructure, and then looking hard to see if someone in Zimbabwe can supply. And increasingly they can. A lot at the beginning of the programme did need outsiders, we agree, but people learned and so far more is done with competent companies at home.

President Mnangagwa has been stressing this week that we need to make sure we are using our own national assets, private and public, more. He also wants to see the procurement used to help new businesses, especially those run by women and youths, get started and then grow. He has been suggesting quotas.

There are some hidden dangers in this, but other Government policies are now in place to minimise the dangers.

Quotas can lead to corruption through favouritism, but the anti-corruption drive is eliminating that. They can also lead to substandard work being accepted, but already it is being made clear in practical terms, such as refusing to renew road building contracts for example, that buy local does not mean we accept excuses.

It is essential when we push the “Buy Zimbabwe” agenda that we also make it crystal clear that the Zimbabwean business we are buying from has the quality and right price.

This in any case is going to be essential as industry moves more and more into export markets. But one reason our industrialists are filling far more shelves is that we never banned imports, so competition remained and the local companies won through because they got quality and price right.

So quotas for women and youths are fine, and a very good idea, so long as we do not specify which women and which youths. There will be duds, and we hope not many, but others can then move in and do the work better.

So long as the quotas look at national percentages, then the normal economic systems will easily find the women and youths who can do a first class job at the right quality and the right price.

Procurement can thus be a driver of local industry so long as we maintain standards, and again there are limits to how big our market can be so those standards are critical when it comes to exports.