The Sunday Mail
Government says it will make additions to the second phase of Zim-Asset, as it seeks to align it with the National Vision 2040, which will also guide economic growth in the coming decades.
Zim-Asset II will run for five years while National Vision 2040, which will outline the country’s economic expectations, will build on that to continue with Zimbabwe’s inclusive growth strategies.
Director of Policy Formulation, Analysis and Coordination in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Mr Edward Samuriwo, said one of the aspects to be incorporated in the Zim-Asset II include national building and rebranding that will assist the country attract foreign direct investment as well as narrow the foreign currency deficit.Zim-Asset II will run for five years while National Vision 2040, which will outline the country’s economic expectations, will build on that to continue with Zimbabwe’s inclusive growth strategies.
The country has suffered low confidence due to negative reports mainly propagated by the West, which made Zimbabwe’s risk profile sky-rocket, hence regarded as an unsafe destination for investment.
Zim-Asset 2013-2018 was meant to propel economic growth anchoring on the country’s available resources.
Mr Samuriwo said while Zim-Asset II will increase focus on investment, both domestic and foreign, the economic blueprint will also emphasise on research, science and technology innovation systems.
He said technology and innovation are key in enhancing productivity, efficiency and the competitiveness of products both on the domestic and international market.
Strategies will also be implemented towards promoting consumption of the “made in Zimbabwe” brands as a way of further promoting local production.
In the past decade, consumption has been skewed towards imports as local industry battled competitiveness.
“What we want is to improve the competitiveness of the country. We also need to align Zim-Asset II with National Vision 2040.
“We cannot start coming up with new clusters to guide Vision 2040, but let us build on the existing Zim-Asset clusters as we develop on the vision as well as align them with sustainable development goals,” he said.
The second phase of the Zim-Asset will also incorporate the sustainable development goals targets, while also building and expanding a strong middle class to promote domestic investment and growing the local market.
Government launched Zim-Asset, which is guiding all policies and programmes until December 2018, to address the challenges the country faces with the plan to provide an enabling environment for sustainable economic empowerment and social transformation.
The economic blueprint is running under the theme “Towards an Empowered Society and a Growing Economy.”
It is built on four main clusters namely food security and nutrition, social services and poverty eradication, infrastructure and utilities as well as value addition and beneficiation.
Zim-Asset II objectives will build on the first phase and increase employment opportunities, promote export led growth and other aspects, which all support the pathway towards an empowered society and a growing economy.
Mr Samuriwo highlighted successful implementation of phase two would also require planners to factor in lessons and shortcomings from Zim-Asset 2013-2018.
He said lessons could also be drawn from the Chinese who have Five Year Plans (FYP) from the 1st FYP of 1978 to the current 13th FYP that all maintain the same thrust of opening up to the rest of the world and has resulted in their economy becoming the second largest in the world over a period of 30 years.
“Long term planning is needed, especially in infrastructural development. Major projects such as power stations will start bearing fruits after a long time. Maintaining the same policy thrust and pursuing unfinished projects is needed to build confidence,” he said.
