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CZI congress focuses on industrialisation

Business
THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries’ (CZI) annual congress kicks off in Bulawayo today with a focus on industrialisation meant to rebuild production capacity, which is still to recover fully from “the lost decade” of 1998-2008.

THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries’ (CZI) annual congress kicks off in Bulawayo today with a focus on industrialisation meant to rebuild production capacity, which is still to recover fully from “the lost decade” of 1998-2008.

BY MTHANDAZO NYONI

The decade was marked by cumulative economic decline and record hyperinflation, which hit the most in the last two years of the great depression.

Running under the theme:

From Dialogue to Implementation – It’s Time to Act, the congress will also focus on how the captains of industry could align their efforts with government’s Vision 2030.

Zimbabwe aims to become a middle-income economy by 2030.

According to the World Bank, a middle-income economy is one with a gross national income per capita ranging from $1 005 to $12 235.

The congress will end on Friday.

About 40 international firms are expected to attend this year’s congress, with some of them coming from much industrialised countries such as Japan, Botswana, India and Italy.

“We are expecting more than 150 delegates, and we are hoping that at least one of the Vice-Presidents will officially open the congress on Friday.

We had hoped to have His Excellency, the President doing that, but we understand he will be travelling,” CZI president Sifelani Jabangwe said.

Jabangwe said it was time for industry to act and complement government efforts to revive the economy.

“We have been talking a lot in Zimbabwe, now it’s time to act,” he said.

The congress gives business leaders an opportunity to gain industrialisation insights from other countries which have successfully turned their economic fortunes around through industrialisation.

Local companies will also have an opportunity to understand how other countries with huge natural resource endowments like Zimbabwe have achieved resource-led industrialisation.