Harare - Competition from South African manufactured products has hit Zimbabwean manufacturers hard, a survey by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) has shown.
The survey showed that South Africa tops the list of competing imported products, with 85% of respondents indicating that they compete with South African products while 66% of the competing products are from China.
“Manufacturing industries continue to face viability challenges with cheap imports mainly from South Africa and China finding their way into the country through porous borders,” the survey showed.
From the respondents there was a distinct call for outright protection of industry, while others felt the need for CZI to promote an “incubation strategy”.
When it comes to exports, the survey showed that South Africa is the fourth destination for Zimbabwean manufactured products.
“Zambia remains the top export destination for manufactured products,
receiving 30% of the manufacturing share of exports.
"Next is Mozambique and South Africa has dropped to fourth position with a 12% market share,” the survey showed.
The country’s manufacturing export sales have however remained unchanged at 15% of total turnover.
Zimbabwean companies that had not exported in the past two years said local products cannot compete in other markets, both in terms of price and quality.
The survey showed that capacity utilisation in the Zimbabwean manufacturing sector has declined from 57.2% to 44.2%, with the worst-performing manufacturing subsector - leather and allied products - operating as low as 27.5%.
Availability and funding cost, infrastructure, in particular power shortages and cost, economic policy instability, high labour cost and rigid labour laws were identified as having the greatest negative impact on capacity utilisation and doing business in Zimbabwe in 2012.
- Fin24