Zimbabwe Business Watch : Week 26
GDP growth for the year 2009 is predicted to be between 4 and 6 % which, given negative growth for preceding years, is a positive indicator of revival. Quite where this improvement will occur is unclear but the retail sector is performing well, and Services is likely to recover, both at the expense of manufacturing.
Many industries have now moved onto short working weeks and some larger enterprises work alternate weeks. Demand for goods is increasing but the financial squeeze continues to deny industry the chance to re-stock and re-finance. The wrangle over exorbitant utility bills continues further reducing the competitiveness of Zimbabwean business within the region.
Margins are slender within the prevailing forex driven market conditions. Previously the Zim Dollar provided the luxury of trading in conditions which allowed a lot of room for manoeuvre.
Business has raised concerns about the increase in fuel prices which do not correspond with world oil price rises. This is having a very negative effect on the ability of local companies to compete as such costs make up a considerable proportion of the value of the end product. Prices have risen from USD 0.65/l in February to USD 1.30 now and rumoured to go to USD 1.60 USD.
June 26th, 2009 04:46
Petrol prices in Australia are between US$1.05 and US$1.30 per litre. In Europe it’s more.
So Zimbabwe, as a land-locked country, is simply coming into line with the rest of the world. Welcome to reality.
June 28th, 2009 04:12
According to the Zimbabwe Standard, the IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank have told Zimbabwe it cannot get more funds until it pays its currentl debts.
“As at the end of May, Zimbabwe owed IMF US$138 million and World Bank
(US$676 million). It also owed African Development Bank US$438 million as at
the end of April.”
Given that it was the rest of the world who unashamedly approved Mugabe’s emergence as a virtual dictator in 1980, supplied him with weapons and military advice, stood idly by during his Gukurahundi massacres, ignored his xenophobia and ethnic cleansing of white farms, and his rape of our diamond and wildlife resources, and given that the SADC were the ones who failed to effectively intervene in Zimbabwe’s subsequent human and economic disaster, a cynic might be forgiven for now insisting that it is the rest of the world, not ordinary Zimbabweans, who should be the ones paying off Mugabe’s debt burden.