Browsing: zimbabwe

The AfCFTA should loop in women to harness the opportunities in trade. www.theexchange.africa

When exports receipts increase it means from the definition given that the country that pursues this strategy will find itself in the desired position where it earns more than it spends.

This in the long run will lead to the country becoming less reliant on balance of payments support from multilateral lenders and repaying its debt obligations.

For a country like Zimbabwe, it is imperative that the southern African country pursues this strategy as the increased foreign exchange receipts will provide desperately needed foreign currency and monetary stability.…

Haulage trucks. Moving goods around Africa has been a huge challenge. www.theexchange.africa

This comes as the IMF has downgraded economic prospects for countries in this cluster. The downgrades have, however, been offset relatively by projections for some commodity producers and exporters that were upgraded on the back of rising commodity prices.

The economic prospects between wealthy nations and low-income countries are expected to be divergent and this divergence will remain of great concern to multilateral lenders and world leaders. In wealthy nations, for example, aggregate output for the cluster economies is expected to regain its pre-pandemic trend path in 2022 and exceed it by 0.9% in 2024 whereas the cluster of nations comprise emerging markets and developing economies (excluding China) will remain 5.5% below their pre-pandemic forecasts in 2024.

This event should it occur as forecast will set back improvements in living standards.…

Meikles Limited is a story on the making of a Zimbabwean corporate aristocrat. www.theexchange.africa

The company has been in existence for about 130 years and in that period amassed a substantial portfolio of businesses that comprise hospitality, food retail, agriculture, and security services. The large size of the company and dominance in the markets made it a darling of the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.

At the height of its conglomerate strategy, the company owned everything from food retailers, department stores, a cotton printing company, tea estates, and a bank. Meikles was even called Kingdom Meikles Africa during its short-lived with Kingdom Financial Holdings.

The company divested its financial services interest in a demerger after an acrimonious shareholder and boardroom dispute and so began the drive to refocus its business activities around its core businesses namely retail, hospitality, security services, real estate, and agriculture. Meikles recently announced that it would be discontinuing its mining activities.…

Zimbabweans have shifted en masse to mobile money usage. The system has become popular with 80 per cent of transactions in the country being conducted electronically. www.theexchange.africa

The shortage of cash is a legacy of the hyperinflation 13 years ago that caused the government at the time to abandon the Zimbabwean dollar. In 2018, the government printed 100 trillion bank notes, causing inflation to reach 500 billion per cent.
In a report published by the), a worldwide organization representing the interests of mobile money operators, Zimbabwe is ranked top among the 16 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in reference to mobile money penetration.
The GSMA, on the other hand, has stated that the), also known as the 2% tax, is making mobile money transactions more expensive.…

Zimbabwe got US$961 in SDRs from the IMF. This had an immediate impact on the country's severely low gross international reserves. www.theexchange.africa

The lender stated during the conference that the country’s economic objectives were still under threat from unsustainable debt.
The government announced last week that external debt grew to US$13.7 billion in September, up from roughly US$10.7 billion the previous year.
Zimbabwe’s debt accounts for more than half of the country’s GDP.…

Zimbabwediamonds ReutersGallo.width 1200

To get their hands on Zimbabwe’s diamond, they conspire with the country’s top government officials and according to the leaked papers, the corruption runs deep, all the way to the very executive.

Makes you wonder, what is hurting the Zimbabwean people more, the US sanctions or the internal usurping of millions of dollars by corrupt government officials and their international partners in crime.

Zimbabwean diamonds go for as high as USD12 000 per carat. To get a picture of how much this racket is worth, consider report findings that have revealed that 350 000 carats of round diamonds worth an estimated USD140 million dollars have disappeared from the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) and the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) repositories.…

Diamonds mined in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has petitioned the UN over its diamond and ivory ban. www.theexchange.africa

Zimbabwe chastised the West for averting Harare’s breakdown by denying “access to markets for Zimbabwe’s diamonds sector” and causing “disinvestment, corporate closures, and a currency collapse” in a document titled “Economic Impact of Sanctions on Zimbabwe.”
Zimbabwe, which is thought to hold 25% of the world’s diamond reserves, has sunk deeper into international turmoil following revelations that over USUS$14 billion had been taken by oligarchs in the Marange highlands, where the US has expressed concerns about forced labour and human rights abuses.
Security forces mercilessly attacked illegal miners around the end of 2008 to gain sole ownership of the mines for the state, prompting the West to label Harare’s jewels “blood diamonds.”…

A gold clad and bullion bar by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Gold exports are Zimbabwe's most valuable resource. www.theexchange.africa

Large-scale miners supplied nine tonnes of gold over the time, according to FPR, the country’s lone buyer of gold, lagging output from small-scale producers, which delivered 13 tonnes.
Bullion output fell slightly to 1,38 tonnes in April, then jumped to 1,66 tonnes in May before soaring to 2,92 tonnes in June.
According to the study, July’s output was 2,82 tonnes before climbing to 3,17 tonnes and 3 tonnes in September and October.…

Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube. His national budget statement for 2022 comes amidst high inflation but is hailed as being pro-poor. www.theexchange.africa

Treasury is expected to continue its trajectory f fiscal consolidation and discipline together with increasing incentives to grow investments in value chain sectors and stability in power supply.
On the taxation front the budget was expected to provide relief to the poor who make up at least 49.9 per cent of the population of the country. This is particularly significant because it has been said on several occasions that Zimbabwean people are among the most taxed in southern Africa.
This is partly the legacy of the minister of finance’s austerity for prosperity policy which resulted in a largely resented 2 per cent transfer tax on all transactions. There have been calls for this tax to be repealed and the tax-free threshold to be increased.…

A Zimbabwean poses next to food rations from the USaid. From Zimbabwe's independence to the mid-1980s, the USA had extended funding up to US$600,000 to develop the Zimbabwean economy. www.theexchange.africa

With an area of 390,757 km2, Zimbabwe is a good depiction of dynamite coming in small packages. Its mineral wealth is something any country would envy.

The Southern African country has the largest known deposits of platinum and significant deposits of many other minerals, including gold, nickel, chrome, and diamonds.

Zimbabwe is also renowned for its vast arable lands, which during the peak of its agricultural dominance, earned it the title’ breadbasket of Southern Africa’. Coupled with a highly skilled and hardworking labour force, Zimbabwe would be a prime trade partner to any country.…