Zimbabwe manufacturing sector capacity utilisation remains flat

Zimbabwe’s manufacturing capacity utilization – a measure of industry’s use of installed productive potential – is seen flat at 34.4 percent, attributed to capital constraints and antiquated machinery, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) has said.

Last year, capacity utilization declined by 2.1 percentage points to 34.4 percent, from 36.5 percent in 2014.

The industrial body conducts an annual survey of industrial development.

CZI president Busisa Moyo said companies were facing many challenges, chief among them critical shortage of liquidity, power outages.

“Our manufacturing sector survey will be out in the next 90 days, but we don’t expect total output or capacity utilisation to have grown across the board although a few sectors may have experienced growth,” Moyo said.

The survey last year indicated that poor economic recovery, compounded by mixed policy signals from government, had affected business confidence.

Moyo, however, said exports have grown in some sectors such as packed horticultural products and local niche segments like mahewu production and milk production.

Going forward, Moyo said as industry they were looking to value chains and production capacity and “how we can increase production to satisfy local demand looking by each sector.”

The CZI manufacturing report is the most comprehensive private-sector led survey, which assesses industrial performance.

At least 15 economic sub-sectors are surveyed, including clothing and textile, pharmaceuticals, grain and milling, oil among other industrial manufacturing activities.-The Source

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