Chief economist at the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) Tafadzwa Bandama presenting last week said there is a need to improve on the doing business environment to promote reports among companies in Zimbabwe.
Bandama said that many companies exported in 2020 but volumes are still low which means there is still an opportunity to increase export volumes.
Bandama said, “Companies are actually on the domestic market because doing export business is very discouraging because of too many licenses, so they are better off selling on the domestic market, but we are hoping that the doing business environment improves so that we boost exports.”
The economist also revealed that companies found it cheaper and easier to sell on the domestic market also because of fewer regulations.
Besides improving the doing business environment the economist also recommended the government to keep tight control of the reserve money.
“There is also a need to improve the public system transport since COVID-19 introduced a new system of transport in the economy,” Bandama said.
“Public policy should prioritise investing in social infrastructure especially in the health sector and water provision because one of the challenges companies experienced (in 2020) was water provision from local authorities. We are hoping that going forward water provision would not be a problem.”
“There is a need for the government to address the currency issue so that there is sustainability in deceleration of inflation in the economy so that there is certainty and also easy of doing business environment,” she said.
Zimbabwe’s exports in 2020 were valued at $4.39 billion a 2.69% increase from $4.27 billion in 2019.
The country’s 2020 ease of doing business score also increase to 54.47 from 47.8 in 2016.
