THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has disbursed $200 000 since March under a facility to assist cross-border traders.
BY TATIRA ZWINOIRA
The $15 million cross-border facility was set up in March to help finance imports and exports of cross-border traders with these traders paying 10% annually to access the loans.
RBZ deputy governor, Jesimen Chipika told NewsDay on the sidelines of a cross-borders conference that a number of traders had benefitted under this facility.
“In terms of figures, we are looking at more than $200 000 that has been disbursed to date from the time it was made and looking at $1 000 per beneficiary, so we feel we are making a lot of progress in that area. Yes, there is much interest and it is an amazing reaction actually. We are excited about it because as you can see just the gathering here [conference] is a small portion of those who wanted to come to this thank you function of theirs,” she said.
The Zimbabwe Cross Border Traders Association (ZCBTA) conference was held in Harare on Friday.
Chipika said RBZ hopes to solve cross-border traders’ major constraints, help them grow bigger, and even help them register as import or export companies.
“As I said, it is a bigger model that we are targeting,” she said.
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An RBZ unit, Homelink, disburses loans to cross-border traders wherein a trader can take out a $1 000 loan in United States dollars cash or exchange bond notes for the same amount.
Once the loan has been taken out and used to buy and sell wares across borders, the traders are required to deposit the proceeds into either Agribank or Steward Bank accounts as the central bank is seeking to formalise the traders.
RBZ seeks to tap into the cross-border traders, who have an estimated annual revenue of $416,3 million, largely part of the reportedly more than $5 billion circulating in the informal sector.
ZCBTA leader, Killer Zivhu, said cross-border traders needed to open accounts with Agribank to repay the kindness shown by the central bank in creating the facility.
Chipika said it would be cheaper to open the accounts with Agribank rather than heading to the parallel market, where people pay premiums of between 5% and 25%.
“Our people picked the wrong mode of doing business during the crisis period [2008]. Sometimes, it is not lack of confidence in the financial sector, it is really a bad habit, which emanated from the crisis 10 years ago and it is taking time to take it out of the people,” she said.
Cross-border traders will also benefit from the loans being doubled to $2 000 from $1 000, which enables them to buy more goods for resale.
