Zimbabwe and South Africa forced to talk as import restrictions hurt SA business

Zimbabwe and South Africa are to begin trade talks tomorrow as South African business piles pressure on Pretoria to push Zimbabwe to end restrictions on imports that it imposed last month.

According to The Sunday Mail Zimbabwe Deputy Industry and Commerce Minister Chiratidzo Mabuwa will be talking to her South African counterpart Mzwandile Masina.

The paper said the Musina business community had already lost more than $10 million in potential business.

Zimbabwe imposed the restrictions on basic goods to protect local industry and curb the outflow of cash which is now scarce in the country.

South African business has protested against the move with National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Lawrence Mavundla saying the government should intervene because it is difficult to deal with a country that interferes with normal trade.

But Mavundla spilled the beans when he disclosed that South Africa was already producing with Zimbabwe in mind.

“Our South African factories produce, knowing that they also supply Zimbabwe. It is a problem that we can no longer trade with them. Also at the border there are a lot of people who are dependent on employment because of the trade that is taking place there, especially in the informal sector,” he told the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

Mavundla said that the Zimbabwean government did not take into consideration that even if it wanted to protect local industry this had to be a process because right now they are dependent on South Africa.

“At the end of the day the citizens are going to suffer because most of the food they have and even the supermarkets they have are South African supermarkets,” he said.

He said even the informal sector which now dominates the Zimbabwean economy was dependent on goods from South Africa.

There were violent demonstrations in the border town of Beitbridge following the restrictions but the Zimbabwean government brushed them off as the work of what it called a third force.

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