‘Relying on SA for inputs unhealthy’

HARARE - Zimbabwean products will struggle to compete with goods produced in South Africa on international markets for as long as the country continues to depend heavily on raw materials from the neighbouring country, study findings reveal.

A study jointly conducted by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) and ZimTrade, found that Zimbabwe depends heavily on South Africa for 58 percent of raw materials it requires, on average, for key manufacturing activities.

However, this is despite the fact the bulk of such raw material inputs could be produced locally, which would save a great deal of the elusive foreign currency in critical short supply.

This scenario, found, creates an state of affairs in the study unhealthy that local products will not be able to compete with South Africa’s on export markets while depending on it for most of the key raw materials.

The outbreak of Covid-19, which has negatively impacted global trade, disrupted supply and value chains, has exposed the risk of over dependency on SA for key raw materials, as any negative developments there will affect Zimbabwe.

China has also emerged to be another major provider of raw materials to emerging economies, making their finished products also uncompetitive in the Asian giant’s markets.

“The above results show that the local industry is highly exposed to the South African economy through the importation of raw materials. – THE HERALD, Zimbabwe.