AXIA seeks duty waiver on solar products

ZIMBABWE Stock Exchange-listed Axia Corporation is pushing for duty waiver on imported solar powered gadgets and has sent its request to the Competition and Tariff Commission (CTC),

NewsDay Business has established.

Axia wants its household goods and appliances retail business unit TV Sales & Home (TVSH) be granted duty waiver when importing various solar products and submitted its request to the CTC in October last year.

But at its board meeting last month, CTC could not pass a decision, but referred the matter to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to make a decision over the request .

According to a board resolution report gleaned by NewsDay

Business, CTC recommended that duty waiver would compliment government efforts to relieve pressure from the national grid by switching to solar energy.

It noted that imported finished solar products attract punitive duty making them expensive for consumers.

“Solar products are more expensive to produce at source than the same product that runs on electricity as the technology used in developing solar is more complicated than that used for products that run-off the main supply. Duty levied on higher costs, results in solar products being more than double the price of the comparative product running on electricity. Duty waiver would significantly reduce imported solar products prices, thereby encouraging more use of solar power,” the report read.

TVSH applied for duty waiver on imported solar products such as televisions, refrigerators, freezers and radios, running on direct current energy such as 12 and 24 volts DC.

In 2010, government introduced Statutory Instrument 147 which removed duty on solar panels, solar geysers, energy saving bulbs, solar inverters and solar lights.

At the height of acute electricity shortages last year, authorities, through the mid-term fiscal policy statement, removed duty on lithium solar batteries to promote use of solar energy, thereby reducing reliance on the national grid.

But the waiver was not extended to solar-powered gadgets such as refrigerators and televisions.

TVSH believes that a duty moratorium on solar-powered products will make them affordable and reduce reliance on the national power grid.

Axia, which also operates fastmoving consumer goods distribution unit Distribution Group Africa and automotive goods retail Transerv, was incorporated on February 24, 2016 and unbundled from Innscor Africa Limited

Axia Corporation Limited (Axia) on April 1, 2016 acquired, through a scheme of reconstruction, the net assets of Innscor Africa Limited’s speciality retail and distribution business, in exchange for 541 593 440 shares in Axia.

It listed on the local bourse in May 2016.

In 2018, CTC approved TV Sales and Home’s acquisition of a 49% stake in the Msasa-based bed manufacturer, Restapedic (Pvt) Ltd.

The group reported revenue of $557,414 million for the year ended 2019 to achieve a 102% growth on the comparative year.

Profit for the year was $63 million from $16,8 million in the prior year.