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Golden Sibanda Senior Business
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) says local firms continue to be negatively impacted by various impediments to doing business and Government is working on them.

CZI president Sifelani Jabangwe in an interview this week said while Government had identified the impediments to doing business through its rapid results initiative, less than a quarter of the resolutions made had been implemented.

This comes as the industrial sector, after receiving more $1 billion in foreign currency support from Government, only generated exports amounting to a mere $222 million and attributed the poor performance to uncompetitiveness of local products in exports markets.

As such, the CZI president, who is the managing director of Zimbabwe’s leading manufacturer of protective and safety clothing, James North, called for expediting of implementation of all reform resolutions.

Mr Jabangwe said in spite of the significant strides made towards addressing issues affecting ease of doing business in Zimbabwe, hectic responsibilities for Government before and after the July elections may have slowed down the implementation of the doing business reforms.

The ease of doing business entails a global assessment of a country’s overall business environment based upon a set of indicators compiled by the World Bank under its doing business initiative.

The industrial sector is one of four major economic sectors in Zimbabwe, which include agriculture, mining and tourism.

Despite nearly two decades of heavy battering from the challenging economic conditions, the sector contributes a weighty 12 percent to Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product.

As such, the Government in 2015, upon realising that the business climate in the country was not attractive to both local and foreign investors introduced the doing business reforms.

The reforms are being spearheaded by the Office of the President and Cabinet and are targeted at identifying and removing bottlenecks, improving on procedures, reducing turnaround time for document processing and reducing the costs were possible.

“What is outstanding is the implementation of the activities that were identified during the rapid results initiative.

“The RRI identified aspects affecting the ease of doing business, but less than 25 percent of the initiatives have been implemented, to say it just as a thump suck figure,” Mr Jabangwe said.

“We need to implement (resolutions the identified issues) because if look at how we are rated, you find that we are rate still very lowly’ that is why our competitiveness is poor.

“So in the environment where our rating is 150 out of 190 to expect local companies to competitive; I thinks it’s (not realistic).

“This situation affects both local and export competitiveness. It’s (the issues) the multiplicity of regulations (the cost). There are a lot of issues, but it comes down to multiplicity of regulations and the fees charged; those are the major ones,” the CZI president added.

Government, working with private sector, sort to identify reform issues which were carried out through five thematic working groups.

These entailed property registration and construction permits, protecting investors and enforcing contracts, getting credit and resolving insolvency, paying taxes and trading across borders.

Further, the Government is working on a number of new legislations and amendments to existing legislations, which have significant bearing on the ease of doing business

These include the Banking Act, Deeds Registry Act, Small Claims Court Act, High Court Act, Movable Property (Bill) Estate Administration Act, Insolvency Act and Companies Act.

It is expected most of the outstanding issues, especially amendments to legislations and new Acts, will be dealt with when Parliament resumes sitting on the 29th of this month.