From recovery to sustained growth
The Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) and its sequel, the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), have seen our economy lurching from recovery to growth. We are now on a sustained growth trajectory, whatever the frequent shocks we encounter along the way, whether these are endogenous or exogenous. What the year 2022 revealed and stressed was the importance of quick, creative policy responses to any such shocks. The year also revealed that indiscipline and selfishness in the market must be fought with all vigour, and without fear or favour. There will always be bad players in our midst who deviously seek to profit from crises they either create or find in the economy or in the world. Where we have so many exogenous shocks hitting us in unremitting succession, such bad players increase and threaten our economic recovery and growth.
Bad apples will be removed
Even measures and facilities meant to assist the economy, such as the introduction of local currency, or the foreign exchange auction system, are wilfully distorted and hijacked to create mayhem in the market.
Such disruptions must be dealt with swiftly and decisively, so a clear message is sent to all players in the market that cutting corners or inventing them invites sure ruin. Going forward into the new year, Government will not hesitate to act whenever and wherever fair market rules are flouted.
Mining and manufacturing
On balance, the economy responded very well to the cumulative measures we took under TSP and NDS1. The manufacturing sector excelled remarkably, increasing capacity utilisation from as low as 30 percent or even below, to over 66 percent at present.
The Mining Sector has been a star performer, developing in a focused and targeted way. We are seeing expanded mining activity across the board, including in new strategic minerals such as platinum, lithium, oil and gas. Even old mines and operations are either re-opening or expanding respectively, thus creating many jobs especially for our youths. Artisanal gold miners have surpassed expectations, both by output and their integrity record on gold deliveries. More gold is now being delivered than ever before, the greater part coming from small, artisanal miners.
Building National Stock of Minerals
Our new policies of getting royalties part in cash and part in commodities, aim to see us stockpiling key minerals for the first time in our country’s mining history. Such mineral stockpiles can always be leveraged for critical financial inflows into the economy. This is critical given the harsh, illegal sanctions imposed on us by some Western countries who enjoy disproportionate influence on the global credit lending system.
Recovery of our Tourism
Our tourism made a phenomenal recovery from Covid-19-related setbacks. The sector’s resilience was on show when it used dead time during the pandemic to invest in new projects while expanding existing ones. Indeed I launched many such projects both in 2021 and this year. That far-sightedness which projected beyond the global pandemic, is now paying off. Zimbabwe has become such a preferred destination both for tourists and airlines that we are facing capacity constraints and bottlenecks we just have to address. I am aware of several greenfield tourism projects which will soon take off, thus improving and spatially dispersing our tourism product.
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