Farai Mabeza, Senior Staff Writer 
AUTHORITIES are ramping up efforts to further stabilise and grow the economy by implementing a raft of new measures aimed at stimulating investments, including the ease-of-doing business climate in the country.
Speaking to The Financial Gazette this week, the chief executive of the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency (Zida), Douglas Munatsi, said authorities were determined “to keep self-introspecting and addressing all areas that are lagging behind,” to foster both foreign and local investment.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, governor John Mangudya and Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube
This comes after Finance minister Mthuli Ncube heeded business’s call to resist the temptation of tinkering with current policies in his mid-term budget review last week, which have been credited with promoting the recovery of the country’s once moribund economy.
It also comes as Zimbabwe has made significant strides in improving its overall ease-of-doing business climate, with the World Bank’s 2020 global rankings placing the country on number 140 — a movement of 37 positions from 2015’s ranking.
“Zimbabwe has been improving on its ease-of-doing-business rankings owing to the efforts that have been put in place to streamline the seamless processing of licences.
“We intend to ride on this momentum and continue improving our positions. Our openness for business is measured by conditions that we are creating for investors and we intend to keep self-introspecting and addressing all areas that are lagging behind,” Munatsi said.
Munatsi also told The Financial Gazette that the ravaging coronavirus pandemic had disrupted some of Zida’s reform efforts.
“The inter-ministerial committee meetings were disrupted and a lot of the work scheduled to be done couldn’t take place as most of it meant physical interaction.
“Though given the challenges, some small milestones were achieved and with the birth of Zida (last year) we hope to see them champion this process further.
Doug Munatsi, chief executive of the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency
“Already we have seen engagements between Zida and Zimra (the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) to bring about ease of paying taxes, which seeks to reduce the number of times taxes are paid through multiple streams and double taxation scenarios,” Munatsi said further.
In addition, Zida would also engage transport associations and other key stakeholders to decongest border posts and to allow the free flow of cargo to enhance Zimbabwe’s competitiveness in the regional road freight sector.
Other key areas of focus, Munatsi said, would be the ease of registering property and starting a business and protection of minority investors.
“We have seen positive changes in the Companies and Other Business Entities Act that further protect minorities and allow them to hold larger shareholders accountable.
“The operationalisation of commercial courts is also going to be a huge positive and this should improve our ‘enforcing contracts’ score. In the medium to long term, we are also focusing on the ease-of-doing local business. Our key stakeholders are the Zimbabwean people and we seek to improve their business environment.
“We are also working closely with ZimTrade to see how we can improve the ease of exporting across our borders,” Munatsi further told The Financial Gazette.
According to the World Bank, the ease-of-doing business framework provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies and selected cities at the sub-national and regional levels.
It captures several important dimensions of the regulatory environment as it applies to local firms and provides quantitative indicators on regulation for starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency, among other things.
The reforms are aimed at improving the operating environment by addressing administrative and regulatory bottlenecks that adversely affect businesses.
All this comes as authorities have insisted that economic stability remains key to their policies, with Ncube maintaining the raft of measures which have been credited with steadying the economy when he presented his mid-term budget and economic review statement to Parliament last week.
He said then that authorities would continue on the path which had created the current economic stability in the country. “Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for the year 2021 is projected to remain strong at 7,8 percent, slightly above the 2021 National Budget growth target of 7,4 percent. “The strong rebound of the economy is anchored on a better 2020/21 rainfall season, higher international mineral commodity prices, a stable macroeconomic environment and managed Covid-19 pandemic.
“The current month-on-month inflation trends of less than three percent is expected to prevail during the second half of 2021.
“As a result of the current disinflationary trajectory, annual inflation for the month of July has declined to 56 percent and is expected to further decline to between 22 percent and 35 percent by December 2021,” Ncube said.
The Treasury chief also told Parliament that the local unit would continue to hold steady against the US$, while pinning hopes for more foreign currency availability on the formal market on the strong performances by the minerals sector and reduced food imports.
“Reflecting ongoing strengthening of confidence in our policies and in the economy, foreign currency flows into the formal system have been on the increase since the beginning of 2020. “Amounts allocated through successive auctions increased significantly for both the main and small to medium enterprises auctions, bringing the total allotments to US$1,544.98 million as at 30th June 2021.
“Despite increases in international prices for most agricultural products of more than 20 percent since January 2021, domestic food prices have remained stable owing to the bumper harvest recorded in 2021,” Ncube further told MPs.
He said higher growth rates were projected in agriculture, electricity generation, manufacturing and financial services.
This comes at a time when the once rickety Zim$ has been relatively stable against the greenback over the past year, on the back of a raft of measures introduced by authorities, including the launch of the foreign currency auction system.
This has, in turn, seen the prices of most basic goods and services stabilising, and the once rampant black market being kept in check.
As a result, the World Bank has recently commended the government’s economic recovery framework, noting that Zimbabwe was poised to register economic growth this year despite challenges that include Covid-19.
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