BY TATIRA ZWINOIRA THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) will next month unveil US$300 million worth of facilities to support manufacturers’ capital requirements.
The facilities will be announced during CZI’s annual congress, officials told reporters on Friday.
Next month’s congress will explore how local companies can integrate their operations globally, while navigating ongoing challenges.
A US$200 million facility will be rolled out to finance supply chain, while a further US$100 million would be deployed towards several other key areas requiring foreign currency.
The facilities would help firms ameliorate forex shortages during a period when companies have struggled to access United States dollars from the foreign currency auction system.
“We are going to be launching a joint initiative where we are in partnership with Loita Capital Partners and Raindew Trading,” CZI CEO Sekai Kuvarika said.
“We are launching a US$200 million facility for industry financing for procurement of raw materials, equipment and working capital.
“We will also launch a US$100 million facility for possible investments into other value chains.
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“There will be a detailed presentation on what that facility is.
“It’s an online trading platform that comes with these facilities.
“We are in agreement with Loita Capital and this is initially extended to CZI members.”
Loita Capital Partners is a financial services subsidiary of Loita Holdings Corporation, a Mauritian based financial investment and advisory firm.
According to its website, Loita Capital Partners International Limited is a pan-African financial services firm that provides “services in the arrangement and funding of debt transactions; advisory services and capital-raising for equity transactions; bank management; correspondent banking; and other corporate-oriented financial services”.
Raindew Trade is a trade and supply chain financing and services platform providing working capital and supply chain solutions to corporates in Africa and other selected markets, according to the firm’s website.
It is headquartered in South Africa.
“The foreign currency that we have been accessing through the auction has been predominantly for working capital,” CZI president Kurai Matsheza said.
“A bit of it has also been going into capital expenditure.
“So as you know, there have been challenges at the auction which are still being addressed.
“It hasn’t enabled our members to be capacitated as they would have wanted. So, some of these facilities will come in and fill that gap.”
Apart from failing to meet forex demands from the auction, local firms are now burdened with shortages of liquidity after government suspended purchases from suppliers.
“There is a liquidity shortage in the market,” Matsheza said.
“With that liquidity shortage, what it tends to do is that it depresses adequate demand so we are not seeing as much traffic into our shops.
“Demand has tailed down a bit.”
Matsheza said that electricity load shedding had also limited the amount of time that CZI members can produce their goods, further affecting their ability to supply products.
He added that if the challenges persisted with no recall, company closures were on the horizon.
