The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa
Post Correspondent
MICRO, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country are accelerating the industrialisation of rural Zimbabwe, a Government official has said.
Through their efforts, regional imbalances are being reduced as equitable distribution of national income and wealth is assured.
Speaking during a workshop that was held on Tuesday at Mutare Teachers’ College for 250 enumerators, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises, Mr Moses Mhike said over the last two decades, the MSME sector has emerged as a highly inclusive, vibrant and dynamic sector of the economy.
The training was conducted in preparation for the MSMEs survey 2021 which is earmarked for completion before the end of this year’s first quarter.
The enumerators were drawn from the country’s 10 provinces.
“The survey comes at the most opportune time as Government is implementing National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) which is setting the foundation for the attainment of Vision 2030 of an upper middle-income economy.
“NDS1 entails that no household will be left behind in rural or urban Zimbabwe.
“MSMEs have proven to be an effective tool in attaining this goal. They are also playing a huge role in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to the sector’s inclusive nature,” he said.
Mr Mhike said the survey is of paramount importance as it provides key information and statistics of the MSMEs’ contribution to the provincial and national Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“We will also get statistics of MSMEs’ contribution to employment, their level of formality, financial inclusion, their spatial distribution across the country, key challenges and constraints facing the sector,” he said.
He added that the gathered data will be used for information designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluation of macro-economic policies and programs.
The country has been using statistics from nine years ago since the last MSME survey was done in 2012.
“The plan is to have the survey after every five years but things did not go as planned. As such the demand for recent statistics kept rising. All that is now being corrected,” he said.
He further stated that due to the implementation of the devolution agenda in the country, there is huge need to see each province and its MSME sector’s contribution to the GDP.
In an interview on the sidelines of the workshop, Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) Acting Director General, Mrs Tafadzwa Bandama said a listing exercise prior to the survey was conducted in December 2021.
“The listing exercise was aimed at identifying households engaged in MSMEs activities from which a sample for the survey was drawn.
“This current training will afford data collection for the survey to be guided by international best standards so that the statistics are comparable,” she said.
Mrs Bandama also said the demand for the MSME sector statistics continues to increase daily as the sector has become a major contributor in the country’s economy.
“The sector contributes significantly to the country’s employment creation as it is a driving force for innovation, skills development and promotion of entrepreneurship.
“It has substantially led to enormous poverty reduction in both rural and urban areas, therefore this survey is crucial,” said Mrs Bandama.
In a separate interview, Manicaland Secretary for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Mr Edgars Seenza said the data that will be collected is key for policy formulation.
“The information will be used in policy formulation, decision making as well as monitoring and evaluating progress of the various developmental programmes in the province and the country at large.
“These include the devolution agenda, Vision 2030, Africa’s Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Mr Seenza.
