Customs duties are now payable on imports of a small range of commodities, most of which are also produced or at least packaged in Zimbabwe, as of today, following the repeal of emergency measures taken in May last year to allow duty-free imports when shortages and fraud led to prices to accelerate the rise in prices.
Products that were allowed duty-free over the past 10 months, and on which duties have now been reimposed, are: cooking oil, corn flour, milk, sugar, rice, flour, salt, bath soap, laundry soap, and laundry soap. Powder, toothpaste and petroleum jelly.
All of these products are produced in Zimbabwe, or at least in some cases packaged in Zimbabwe, by several manufacturers and most brands are available most of the time, with local brands dominating the store shelves with very few imports available, so The concessions of May last year are now largely on paper.
The revocation of duty-free status was gazetted yesterday by the Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion, Professor Mthuli Ncube in the Customs and Excise (Amendment) (Suspension) Regulations, 2024 (No. 272).
The original purpose of suspending customs duties and VAT on imports in May was to put a cap on the maximum price hikes that local manufacturers and distributors could charge, by ensuring Zimbabwean retailers and the private sector could import substitutes.
Domestic manufacturers cannot charge more than imports, the price of which will rise slightly due to higher transportation fees.
At the time, there were rapid price changes with many Zimbabwean suppliers using forward pricing, black market exchange rates and other undesirable measures to accelerate price movements.
Duty-free imports were one of several measures taken by the government to tame exchange rates and what it called “price madness.”
The main factor was the shift to using the banking system through wholesale auctions of foreign currency to determine accurate market-based exchange rates.
Other measures imposed strict restrictions on the creation of the local currency, the most important of which was the Ministry of Finance taking over the management of Zimbabwe’s debt from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and purchasing 30 percent of export proceeds that exporters are forced to sell at the market price. Official exchange rate. Announce
