Business should put productivity ahead of profit

As the debate on indigenisation takes centre-stage again with confusion about who is right, the Minister responsible for indigenisation Christopher Mushohwe, or Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, or Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, it might be worth reviewing what Zimbabwe is really aiming for. Ricardo Hausmann, a former minister of planning of Venezuela and former Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank and Professor of the Practice of Economic Development at Harvard University says the current relationship between the private sector and the government is often dysfunctional. The private sector often engages with the government in order to make itself more profitable. But these schemes make firms more profitable by making their suppliers, workers, and customers poorer. Outcomes would be very different if the focus of the relationship were productivity rather than profitability. Productivity improvements, by lowering costs, allow firms to pay their workers and suppliers better, reduce prices for consumers, pay more in taxes, and still make more money for their shareholders. A focus on productivity is win-win-win. Below is his article in full.

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