Business / Trade in Zimbabwe
-
BOTSWANA, 2017/08/30
"Africa is terra incognita for the Trump Government: a continent it cares little - and understands even less - about. With no dyed-in-the-wool Trumpian Africa hands available, the government appears ready to cede Africa policy making to career civil servants and a few mainstream Republican appointees." - Matthew T. Page
The headline to Page's article in Quartz Africa states that "Donald Trump could be getting his US-Africa policy right by simply not having one." His view is actually additional nuanced, in judging that no policy would likely be only "less bad" than explicitly "bad policy" that may result from better White Home interest in Africa.
-
BOTSWANA, 2017/07/14
Access to data across African economies, which has been hindered by the fragmented nature of the respective markets, is currently threatening a $400 billion intra-Africa trade potential.
Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) said the present transactions price at $170 billion remained their due to wide gap in market data, which presently needs to be closed to foster accelerated trade integration.
Meanwhile, the size of intra-African trade could be doubled from the current level of about $170 billion per year to almost $400 billion by addressing the issue of availability of market data on the continent.
-
BOTSWANA, 2017/06/24
Trade between African nations has long been outstripped by intra-regional trade in other parts of the world – for Africa as a whole, intra-regional trade is between 10% and 13% of total trade. This is far lower than in regions such as the EU, where about 60% of trade is between member states, and the Association of South-east Asian Nations, which has a rate of about 25%. Intra-regional trade in North America is put at about 40%.
However, the ratification of the Tripartite Free Trade Sector(TFTA) – potentially later in 2017 – could help change that and push the development of additional intra-regional trade increase. A pan-regional free-trade zone, the TFTA stretches from Cairo to Cape Town and encompasses 26 African nations.
Africa’s Tripartite Free Trade Area would reduce regional tariffs and create a pan-African single market, to aid development and cash in on a growing middle class in the continent. But with member countries often belonging to multiple economic areas, progress is both complex and slow, as Kit Gillet reports.
-
BOTSWANA, 2017/06/15
Importers have threatened to increase the prices of goods if the government implements the 0.2% import tax to fund the AU.
Mr Samson Awingobit Asaki, Executive Secretary of the Importers and Exporters Association, told the Ghana News Agency that the implementation of the tax would increase the cost of operation for importers.
Mr Asaki added that at the same time as it happens like that, they would have no other choice than to transfer the cost onto the prices of goods for the consumers.
-
UNITED STATES, 2017/01/17
Outgoing United States President Barack Obama has extended sanctions against Zimbabwe by at least an extra year, a statement said on Sunday.
This came as reports on Friday indicated that Obama's government was set to relieve sanctions against Sudan and broaden presently limited talks with the long estranged African government.
-
ZIMBABWE, 2016/11/20
WE discord on a lot as Zimbabweans, to the extent that we may even discord about what we actually discord on.
One thing that seems to permeate all such disagreements and their magnitude is the fact that these are unprecedented times in the history of the country. Undoubtedly what shapes discourse over several spheres stems from the various phases of experiences and challenges we have gone through as a country.
-
BOTSWANA, 2016/05/13
The collapse of virtual borders is one of the majority remarkable things to have happened in our lifetimes. In the world of cyberspace, time and distance have become almost peripheral considerations at the same time as it comes to doing business. Services from software development to accounting can be delivered across the world in the blink of an eye. Next business leaders will struggle to imagine an era at the same time as communication was neither immediate nor virtually free.
-
CHINA, 2015/12/02
Chinese President Xi Jinping landed Tuesday morning in Harare and was greeted with a 21-gun salute by his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe.
This marks the initial visit of a Chinese leader to the country since 1996.
The visit shows Beijing’s interest in “cementing relations between the two nations”, as specified by Xi, who applauded Zimbabwe’s role as acting chair of the African Union in favoring and reinforcing the development of the continent”.
China last year invested $238 million in Zimbabwe, becoming its initial economic partner.
-
ITALY, 2015/09/13
Mistrust has emerged part the East African Community partner states over Tanzania's commitment to the Economic Partnership Agreement that would give the region's goods business-free access to European markets.
Tanzania is likely to delay the signing and ratification of the EPA document on the grounds that it was rushed through. Dar es Salaam has threatened not to sign the transaction before its concerns on contentious issues are addressed. The region has until December 31 to sign the transaction with the European Union or go back to the negotiating table.
-
ZIMBABWE, 2015/09/12
South Africa maybe be lamenting its misfortunes owing to its currency's continued depreciation, but companies in Zimbabwe prefer the rand, saying it is a case of better the devil they know than the United States dollar.
Zimbabwe uses a multi-currency regime anchored by the greenback although other currencies such as the pound, rand, pula and yen part others are as well accepted as legal tender.
But the country, formerly the region's breadbasket, has seen its economy sink into deflation, with fortunes worsened by job losses, company closures and subdued national revenue collections.
