Dubai (New Ziana) – The Zimbabwe government expects industry’s capacity utilisation to surge to over 60 percent by year-end despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Vice President General Constantino Chiwenga (Rtd) said on Thursday.
Capacity utilisation is the extent to which industrial infrastructure is being used versus its maximum installed capacity.
A recent manufacturing sector survey by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries pointed to a thriving sector.
“The upward trend in capacity utilisation reflects an industry that is recovering, which is not surprising given improved access to foreign currency and the improvement in output in the agriculture sector,” the CZI second quarter report said.
Addressing the two-day Global Business Forum Africa here, VP Chiwenga said the COVID-19 pandemic had presented Zimbabwe with a chance to boost its local production capacities.
“Borders were no longer open, movement of goods and services became slow and we said OK let us utilise our local abilities, our local opportunities and we put our people together and we saw the rise from 36 percent of capacity utilisation and manufacturing to 47 percent and this year we are looking at it getting to 61 percent,” he said.
“In the retail sector, the share of consumables on our shelves has now risen up to 70 percent.”
VP Chiwenga added; “When COVID-19 struck us we got affected, but we quickly turned that adversity into an opportunity and we accelerated our development.”
New Ziana