The delay by financial institutions to pay upfront fees and apply for draw-downs is impacting on the disbursement of the Zimbabwe Economic and Trade Revival Fund (Zetref).
Finance minister Tendai Biti, in a monthly update on the state of the economy last week, said although projects worth $45, 2 million were approved by Zetref assessment committee, low disbursements delays were caused by banks in paying upfront fees and applying draw-downs.
“Actual disbursements to date are $17,8 million. Low disbursements are due to delays by banks in paying upfront fees and applying for draw-drowns,” Biti said.
The fund was launched by the government in 2010 as a $100 million facility to try and ease the liquidity challenge in the country and assist firms recapitalise their operations through acquisition of new equipment and injection of working capital.
Biti said the bulk of the funds were allocated to the productive sectors of the economy to boost capacity utilisation.
The manufacturing sector has so far received the largest chunk with 57%, agriculture 26%, health 13%, tourism 1% and the media 3%.
“The manufacturing sector dominates the sectoral distribution of the project, which shows that most funds were allocated to the productive sectors of the economy for purposes of increasing capacity utilisation as well as value addition,” he said.
Participating banks include TN Bank, FBC Bank, Kingdom Bank, Trust Bank, BancABC, POSB, ZB Bank, Metropolitan Bank, Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe, NMB and Agribank. Meanwhile, Biti said: “Cumulatively, gold output for the months of January and February 2012 has reached 1 981kg. Of this output, primary producers accounted for 1 548,8kg while small-scale miners recorded 432kg.”
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He said cumulative declared exports shipment for January 1 to March 2 2012 increased by 6,38% to $584 million compared to $549 million during the same period in 2011. Biti said from the total amount, mining followed by tobacco exports accounted for 70,5% and 14,5% respectively.
