The Sunday Mail
“The extent of your vision is the boundary of your blessing.”
These words from President Mugabe serve to inspire those wishing to expand their horizon. They resonate with industry and commerce where business leaders must now graduate from local dominance to regional and international markets.
Leave the shore to discover opportunity in the ocean, is the motto.
Most Zimbabwean businesses whose sole market is domestic have experienced low sales volumes due to depressed demand, competition from imports, low liquidity and various other macro-economic challenges.
Present circumstances do not determine where one can go; they merely indicate where you can start. We are all faced with a series of great opportunities disguised as unsolvable problems. Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem.
As such, any forward-thinking business entity must navigate a route to:
Master greater power to overcome original difficulty
Uncover opportunity — rethink in order to develop new markets
Implement a strategy of entering regional markets in Sadc
Figures from 2013 indicate that 91 percent of Zimbabwe’s total exports amounting to US$3,1 billion have been destined for six of the 15 Sadc countries — South Africa (82,65 percent), Mozambique (11,69 percent), Zambia (3,66 percent), Botswana (1,39 percent), DRC (0,36 percent) and Namibia (0,25 percent).
Sadc as a market has numerous opportunities. It contributes a GDP of US$647 billion, representing 32,1 percent of total African GDP. The region is also home to 285 million people constituting 27,2 percent of Africa’s population.
Its total import bill stands at US$189 billion while registering a stable average inflation of 3,5 percent. In addition, it has an average growth rate of 7, 7 percent. Intra-regional trade stands at US$23,5 billion of which Zimbabwe contributes 1,8 percent of total trade.
If more Zimbabwean businesses leverage on the various instruments enacted to encourage intra-regional trade, their businesses will grow given the available regional opportunities. There is no passion to be found in playing small — in settling for less than a business is capable of attaining.
Any such business looking for regional markets (which is the way to go any way due to globalisation) has to leverage on the Sadc Free Trade Agreement to be competitive.
The objective of this agreement is to provide the following:
Liberalise intra-regional trade in goods and services;
Ensure efficient production;
Contribute towards improvement of the climate for domestic, cross-border and foreign investment;
Enhance economic development, diversification and industrialisation of the region.
This will translate into direct benefit to businesses as follows:
Increased capacity utilisation from domestic production to meet aggregate consumer demand
Greater business opportunities as businesses expand markets into the region
Access to cheaper inputs for production consumer and capital goods, and quality certified services
Productivity-related labour costs
More foreign direct investment and joint venture alliances
Becoming part of regional value chains of intra-regional trade.
Looking at the national export basket, it is clear that Zimbabwean businesses are losing out on exports to the 60 percent of regional markets whose intra-Sadc import bill has a potential market of US$14 billion, and financing facilities available to partnerships through FDI inflows which stood at US$11,3 billion in 2012 and have had average inflows of US$12,2 billion since 2009.
Blessed is the man who sees the need, recognises the responsibility and actively becomes the answer.
Zimbabwean businesses need to start entering regional export markets. Given the aggregate demand and market potential, doing business in the Sadc market makes sense. There are various training and support programmes available for businesses to enter new markets intelligently and optimise return on initial investment.
The first step is the most important in any journey. So, Zimbabwean businesses must wise up and see the glaring opportunities around them. Absolute abundance awaits new discovery. Process precedes proceeds.
Businesses that choose to ignore their wider impacts will be overtaken in the emerging competitive regional market.
The world is as big as one’s outlook. The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
I leave you with some inspiration from Robert Frost: “Something we were withholding made us weak until we found it was ourselves.”
Kingstone Pumula Kanyile is a regional trade and investment advisor, and is the chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe–Sadc Business Association.
