The Sunday Mail
SOUTH Africa is exploring ways to assist the country in its current re-industrialisation programme, it has been established.
The Minister of Industry and Commerce, Mr Mike Bimha, met with South Africa’s Minister of Industry and Trade Mr Rob Davies on the sidelines of the 36 Sadc (Southern Africa Development Community) Summit of Heads of State and Government in Swaziland last week.
According to Mr Bimha, follow-up meetings to discuss ways to boost investment in local industry are expected.
“We met on the sidelines of the Sadc Summit with the South African minister (Mr Davies) and he expressed that we should meet and find ways of boosting investment in Zimbabwe, and possibly the promotion of new players, new investors or joint ventures to promote investment between the two countries as a way of driving industrialisation in Zimbabwe in the light of challenges facing the country.
“So, as a result of our discussions of SI 64, South Africa now believes that we need to look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture is to promote investment and work towards more co-operation between the two countries,” said Minister Bimha.
The re-engagement between the two neighbouring countries puts paid to speculation that Zimbabwe’s decision to restrict imports of select products will be escalated to Sadc.
SI 64 of 2016 effectively removes 42 products such as building materials, wheelbarrows, sugar and cooking oil from the Open General Import Licence.
The Control of Goods Act gives the Minister power to regulate imports.
But South Africa’s business community continues to implore Government to lift restrictions targeted at some of its goods.
Government says it will not consider the concerns of South African business people, particularly those in Musina, who have been fretting about the loss of business.
“We talk with the Government, we went there and explained our case and they understood the reasons why we came up with SI 64.
“Now, if there is anyone who is unhappy, it is those who have
been exporting products to Zimbabwe, it is the same business people who demonstrated (early July) but we relate well with the South African government.
“If South African business people want relations, they can relate with our business people because this SI64 is not for Government but for business people to revive their industries,” explained Minister Bimha.
Market watchers believe that SI 64 is in line with regional trade protocols.
Article 20(1) of the Sadc Trade Protocol states that any member state within the region can “apply a safeguard measure to a product only if that member state has determined that such product is being imported to its territory in such increased quantities, absolute or relative to domestic production, and under such conditions as to cause or threaten to cause serious injury to the domestic industry that produces like or directly competitive products”.
Similarly, Article 6 of the World Trade Organisation’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) allows countries to take action against dumping.
It is understood that what Zimbabwe intends to achieve through restricting the import of goods that can ideally be produced by local companies is in line with regional aspirations that are meant to promote industrialisation.
Sadc is in the process of developing an Action Plan for the Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap for the 48-year period to 2063.
The action plan — adopted in April last year — is meant to develop a coherent, time-bound and coordinated strategy for industries in the region.
