LIVINGSTONE MARUFU
Zimbabwe spent US$5.4m importing safety matches in the past three years following the closure of the Lion Matches Zimbabwe in 2009, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) has said.
Zimbabwe used to have a thriving matches business and Lion Matches could absorb the domestic demand but closed shop after being severely affected by the hyperinflation era.
With the coming in of dollarisation and multiple currency regimes, the country’s largest safety matches producer could not make a comeback resulting in the influx of cheap matches.
“Over the past three years, Zimbabwe used about US$5.4m on importing finished safety matches. (This is against) the general thrust of the National Development Strategy 1 [NDS1], which seeks to provide measures for ‘Moving the Economy up the Value Chain and Structural Transformation’ as a pillar towards attaining Vision 2030,”CZI said.
Most of the Zimbabwean rural areas have no access to electricity.
According to the World Bank statistics, about 70% of the Zimbabwean population mainly live in rural areas thus they use safety matches for lighting firewood, lighting candles and heating purposes.
Safety matches are also used in starting a fireplace, industrial burners, camp fire and tobacco barns.
The population that uses safety matches in urban Zimbabwe has also increased over the years due to load shedding, as the use of liquefied petroleum gas as a substitute gathered pace.
This makes the safety match value chain one of the most important value chains in the economy.
The structural and industrial transformation envisaged under NDS1 seeks to ensure that the secondary industries, which include manufacturing, gain more prominence in the economy, given the cascading value chain benefits that will drive employment and livelihood gains.
High import dependence threatens rapid economic transformation and resuscitation of the manufacturing sector.
Economies that are associated with viable and strong value chains generally face reduced impact of shocks, especially those that affect global value and supply chains.
“Resuscitation of the safety matches industry will support import substitution initiative, job creation, utilising idle capacity in the manufacturing sector, increase in tax revenue, foreign currency earnings when safety matches are exported as well as reduction of demand for foreign currency,” CZI said.
