11 Jun 2019

Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI), Ms Bogolo Kenewendo says her ministry is committed to building productive capacity of the local producers.

Giving a keynote address at the Retailers and Food Producers workshop on June 10, Ms Kenewendo called upon the private sector to partner with MITI in delivering on the initiative. 

“The development of Small, Micro and Medium Enterprises (SMME) is key to economic development and job creation, that’s why we are focusing our efforts on it at MITI,” she said. Local industries, the minister said, needed to be supported by retailers for them to grow and be competitive in an open economy.

On many occasions, she said local producers and manufactures had approached her ministry raising concerns on market access locally and requesting for border restrictions.

Therefore, she said the workshop was key as it provided a platform for retailers to share their requirements and expectations for listing local producers, and also for intermediary organisations to share their SMME development programmes.

The event also afforded retailers an opportunity to exchange information and gain insights in business operations, product quality standards, as well as product development.

In her welcome remarks, MITI deputy permanent secretary for industry, Ms Shirley Moncho said SMMEs were one of the ministry’s priorities.

Ms Moncho expressed concern that ‘if we continue to import all our products, the impact will lead to closure of industries, loss of jobs and low purchasing power, which will also lead to retailers losing those who will be buying from them.”

“We want industries to create jobs, because with jobs, we will have income and be able to buy from our retailers and this can only happen if retailers support the industries by sourcing from them,” she stressed.

For government to be able to diversify the economy, Ms Moncho said it was important for SMMEs to be competitive; with well-developed productive capacities, adding, ‘for SMMEs to be competitive they need to be nurtured.’

She said SMMEs growth and expansion would result in wealth and increased purchasing power that would at the end benefit retailers.

For that reason, Ms Moncho said MITI continued to engage the private sector to ensure that it came up with ways to develop SMMEs, ‘hence the ministry, in the past years, had meetings with the private sector and retailers in particular, to try and encourage them to support local producers.’

Furthermore, she said in August 2018, a study was undertaken to determine the level of commitment of retailers towards local industries, adding that the Retailers and Food Producers workshop emanated from recommendations of that study. ENDS