By Alois Vinga
SEMI-manufactured gold and tobacco dominated Zimbabwe’s export list in the period ended September 30 2024 in a development signifying the urgent need for aggressive implementation of beneficiation strategies to maximize full benefits.
The latest data presented by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstats) said the country 40,2 % of gold and 19,3% of tobacco exported during the period was semi-processed.
The data also shows the country’s top ten exports during the month were in raw form with nothing processed. These included Nickel Ores and Nickel mattes, Ferro chromium, Coke, Other Ores and Concentrates.
“Among the top ten products exported in September 2024 were semi-manufactured gold, tobacco, partly or wholly stemmed/stripped, and nickel mattes, accounting for 40.2%, 19.3%, and 13.0% of the total value of USD 575.0 million, respectively,” said ZIMSTATS.
Zimbabwe has lost billions of dollars over the years due to the disposal of commodities in their raw form.
Market watchers believe that beneficiation of raw minerals would foster the creation of downstream labour-intensive industries which would use the mineral products as raw materials. Beneficiation would create backward and forward linkages which are interdependent compared to the situation where only the extraction industry is developing.
During the period, imports totalled USD782,6 million, which was 10.4% (USD 90.7 million) less than the August 2024 imports of USD873,2 million.
Zimbabwe’s goods trade deficit for September 2024 was US$ 207,6 million, a 4.2% increase from the August 2024 deficit of USD 199.1 million. A trade deficit occurs when a country’s value of imports is greater than that of exports in a given period.
Among the major source countries for imports in September 2024 were South Africa (36.8%), China (19.2%), Bahamas (6.1%) and Singapore and UAE with 4.6% each. The five countries accounted for around 71% of the total import value of USD 782.6 million.
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