The Sunday Mail
Sunday Mail Reporter
SADC member states should come up with strategies to stimulate the growth of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) into viable entities as part of boosting industrialisation.
According to the draft Sadc industrialisation strategy and roadmap, adopted at the 14 member bloc’s extraordinary summit held in Harare recently, growth of SMEs is key to industrial development.
The growth of SMEs is one of the areas identified as a contributor to industrial development alongside other factors including establishing sovereign wealth funds, enhancing beneficiation of minerals and increasing Diaspora remittances.
Part of the document reads: “Sadc countries need to put in place an integrated policy framework that will help refocus activities and target them to the broader goal of industrialisation and transformation. The strategy should include…a clear policy on graduation and greater sophistication of SMEs allied to their integration into the mainstream economy.”
Other strategies identified to boost SMEs include entrepreneurial and skills training as well as finance mechanism more responsive to the small scale businesses.
The industrialisation roadmap further calls for legislation governing beneficiation.
According to the roadmap, proceeds from mineral sales should be used for beneficiation.
“Returns from enhanced mineral exports would need to be ploughed back into modernisation of the natural resources sector and leveraged to facilitate industrial deepening and diversification.
“Beneficiation requires huge investments…and pertinent policies on resource exploitation, promotion of inter linkages and ploughing back natural resource rents, through establishment of Sovereign Wealth Funds.
“Within Sadc development context, and based on recent experiences regionally and globally, the Industrial Strategy identifies three clear cut priorities for accelerated industrialisation. These are agriculture led growth, minerals beneficiation and processing and enhanced participation in domestic, regional and global value chains. These three prioritised strategies are mutually compatible. Policy makers are not required to choose between them. Projects under all three can be implemented simultaneously, subject to their financial viability and their regional and or global competitiveness.
“Government should also take the lead in building industrial infrastructure such as industrial parks to support cluster development.
“Also in the pipeline is establishment of a Sadc think-tank to spearhead dialogue between the private and public sectors.
“Since private sector business organisations in Sadc are for the most part weak and under-resourced, there is a strong case for an independent regional think-tank in Sadc with research capability to stimulate, inform and manage the private-public dialogue on policy issues of all kinds. The roles envisaged for such an institution include monitoring the progress of industrialisation across the Sadc region, providing research inputs and advice to the Sadc secretariat and the public and private sectors in Member States and ensuring that transformation and economic modernisation are kept in the fore-front of public awareness and debate.”
The Sadc Industrialisation Strategy is anchored on three pillars — Industrialisation, Competitiveness as well as Regional Integration, and premised on a three phase long perspective covering 2015-2063.
The Industrialisation Strategy is aligned to the Continental Vision, Agenda 2063, a global strategy aimed at optimising the use of natural resources for the benefit of Africa.
