Despite the Covid-19 setback which has been threatening to derail economic growth for the past two years, Manicaland Province has great potential to revive and grow the provincial economy.
The province is a very rich province as it is blessed with natural endowments that include gold, diamonds, timber and majestic places.
Considering the treasures that are littered in almost every sector, the province has what it takes to contribute meaningfully towards the attainment of an upper middle income economy in line with Vision 2030.
Investor frenzy to invest in Manicaland has been noted in several investment fora. The anticipated huge capital inflow will feed into the mining, tourism, manufacturing and agricultural sectors and cascade into tangible benefits for the people of Manicaland.
Located near the border with Mozambique, Manicaland is indeed a hub for trade with railway and highway links connecting the port of Beira and Harare. All this gives Manicaland a great advantage.
Manicaland’s Secretary for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Mr Edgars Seenza, says the provincial development strategy is anchored on re-industrialisation, mining, agricultural revolution, value addition and beneficiation as well as tourism, innovation and export promotion.
Over the years, the scenic Eastern Highlands which serves as a gateway to the Mozambique coast has identified the tourism sector as a low hanging fruit, amid plans to court Dubai and Abu Dhabi firms.
Considering that almost every district in the province has a vast tourism attraction, tourism is a part of the sleeping giants that will be awakened during the course of this year.
The issue of special economic zones is also at the centre of the province’s development strategy that will give birth to one of the biggest milk factories in the region while other special economic zone promotion engagements are being explored with the support of regional and international counterparts.
Growth in the agricultural sector during the ongoing farming season is also guaranteed as Government forges ahead with implementing National Development Strategy (NDS1).
Agriculture has been contributing 34 percent of Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product (GDP), and its growth rate is set to increase on the back of intense capacitation of farmers as well as the ongoing mechanisation programmes.
Manicaland, largely a rural province, is a major contributor in the farming sector.
Apart from tobacco, maize and wheat; the province rakes in lots of export revenue through the production of macadamia nuts and timber.
The consumption of macadamia nuts in Asia, America, and Europe is positive and the demand has been increasing constantly.
This has been fuelled by the increasing interest in healthy eating.
Raw macadamia nuts are not produced on these continents and hence most countries are forced to import.
As the year gets into full swing, the province will reap even more rewards from adding value to these nuts as value added products cost higher than raw ones.
As it stands, importers are buying raw macadamia nuts and using them to make chocolate and then exporting the macadamia-chocolate back to Zimbabwe at a higher price.
This way, they earn more money than the raw nuts they would have imported from Chipinge, Zimbabwe.
Farmers should therefore process their nuts to add value to them and only export value added products.
This way they can fetch more money than when they sell raw nuts.
The same should apply in all the other sectors.
Our diamonds and gold should not be exported in their raw forms as this is tantamount to exporting jobs and revenue to other countries.
Government has also rolled out various initiatives to support small-scale miners and this has seen the national gold output significantly increasing.
With such a pot-pourri of strategies, the province’s thrust guarantees an efficient, competitive and sustainable provincial economy which ensures food and nutrition security as well as increased incomes at household, provincial and national level.