Be aggressive enough to venture into foreign markets for forex: Minister
LOCAL industry should be aggressive in marketing their products abroad to earn foreign currency and do away with overreliance on the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) for hard cash supplies towards import requirements, a Cabinet minister has said.
Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Minister, Dr Sithembiso Nyoni, said time has come for local businesses to stand on their own by penetrating regional and international markets through adoption of an aggressive marketing approach to boost exports.
She was speaking on the side-lines of the tour of Kwekwe-based dairy company, Dendairy Pvt Limited by Rwandan Ambassador to Zimbabwe, James Musoni, on Saturday.
“We are always talking about foreign currency shortages but it’s because we are not aggressive enough in marketing what we produce on the international market. We cannot start by squeezing the RBZ yet we can market our products and attract foreign customers and boost exports,” she said.
Dr Nyoni said Government was playing its part in creating linkages between local companies and foreign markets and called on the private sector to also rise to the occasion.
“This tour is part of Government’s efforts to expose local companies to the international market. We are going to make sure that companies that we have seen growing like Dendairy get foreign market. We are going to link Dendairy to Rwandan market so that they export a lot of their products there,” said Minister Nyoni.
She said the Zimbabwe/Rwanda ties fostered by Government had opened a market in the East African country where a lot of areas have been identified. The Minister further implored Zimbabweans not to look down upon SMEs saying the budding entrepreneurs were contributing a lot to the economy.
“I came to Dendairy in 2006 and they used to deliver only two trucks of milk to Harare, but currently they are sending 15 trucks per day to Harare. Dendairy is a very good example that we should not look down upon SMEs as they will grow to become some of the biggest companies,” said Dr Nyoni.
“We are going to assist Dendairy to export their products to Rwanda and some countries.”
Amb Musoni said they had learnt a lot from the tour of the company and Zimbabwe in general.
“This very plant we visited is top class and they are doing well in terms of quality and they produce top quality products that we can easily market in our country. Our respective leaders recently met and this is part of the follow up to what our leaders agreed on,” he said.
Amb Musoni said Kigali was working closely with Harare to establish a commission that will facilitate and update on a number of programmes between the two countries. Rwanda Food Processing Industry chairperson Mr James Biseruka who was part of the delegation was also impressed by the state of the art equipment at the Dendairy plant.
“We have seen similar machines especially in the dairy industry, we can support each other and there is a lot of opportunity in terms of expansion if we continue learning from each other. We think on the milk side, we have a lot of opportunity in our country and we have identified a number of products that we require,” said Mr Biseruka.
Dendairy recently embarked on an expansion drive where three state of the art lines are set to be commissioned. The company has set its eyes on doubling production from 4,6 litres to about eight million litres per month. The firm has since entered into the regional market with its products found in Zambia, South Africa and Malawi.