INDUSTRY and Commerce ministry is seeking to scale up rural industrialisation and the support of companies that have capacity to expand into these regions, Standardbusiness can reveal.
Permanent secretary in the ministry, Mavis Sibanda told Standardbusiness in an interview last week that rural industrialisation was a priority for the government.
“We are actually working on rural industrialisation. We are looking at companies, those who can go and set up in the rural areas so that development is not only in the city centres,” Sibanda said.
“We are looking at comparative advantages of different areas to say if we can get someone either in industry or commerce to get something going on so that no one is left behind.”
The results of the 2022 Population and Housing Census indicate that at least 61,4% of the 15 178 957 population lives in rural regions as of April last year.
This caused Treasury in the 2023 National Budget to prioritise the needs of the rural people.
Agriculture, rural electricity, roads, water and sanitation are just a few examples of ongoing programs and projects that are being promoted by the government for economic empowerment.
However, a key challenge to the ministry’s plans of rural industrialisation is confidence by the manufacturing sector as highlighted in the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency’s 2023 First Quarter Business Tendency Survey Report on manufacturing.
- Manufacturers get US$300m lifeline
- Parly starts 2023 pre-budget consultations
- Govt implored to increase health funding
- Budget allocation insufficient: Foreign Affairs
Keep Reading
The combined capacity utilisation for large, medium and small companies in the manufacturing sector was 45,6% for the first quarter of 2023, according to the report.
Large companies had capacity utilisation of 51,1%, down from 56,9% in fourth quarter 2022. For small and medium companies in the sector the utilisation reduced to 44,5% from 48,8% recorded in the fourth quarter 2022.
