Zimbabwe has rejected nearly 155 million units of substandard products since the implementation of the Consignment Based Conformity Assessment (CBCA) program in 2015, enabling the country to reduce the flow of hazardous and suboptimal products domestically.
In 2015, the government engaged the services of French and international standards company, Bureau Veritas, to conduct shipment-based assessments of imported products before shipment or upon arrival in the country.
While the compliance of imported products that entered Zimbabwe prior to the implementation of the CBCA program is unknown, the initiative is a giant step towards significantly reducing dangerous and substandard imported goods as well as improving customs duty collection.
This initiative is of vital importance as it seeks to protect Zimbabwean consumers from dangerous or suboptimal products, as well as improve the quality of products through established standards and regulations.
This is especially important at a time when the continent has adopted the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which Zimbabwe signed, aims to eliminate customs duties on 90 percent of goods exchanged between member states over a period of 10 years.
This means that industries across Africa need to prepare for intense competition and that strengthening value chains is essential to ensure Zimbabwean businesses can compete.
The African Continental Free Trade Area is also expected to boost intra-African trade by 53 percent by 2025 with the potential to create up to 30 million jobs and lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty.
Speaking during a CBCA sensitization workshop organized by Bureau Veritas in Harare on Tuesday, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Dr. Thomas Otiti Wushi, said the CBCA program has since become a key aspect of the country in promoting consumer welfare as well as promoting fair trade practices.
“After the CBCA program began in May 2015, more than 154,207,545 units of products were rejected.
“Before the implementation of the programme, the conformity of products imported into the country was not known or appreciated.
“The CBCA program therefore continues to play a pivotal role in protecting our local industry from unfair competition presented by non-compliant imported products by ensuring they meet the prescribed standards,” he said.
He said that as Zimbabwe embarks on growth with a major focus on exports as the African Continental Free Trade Area program unfolds as well as leveraging industrial capacity, it remains imperative that economic players import high-quality, quality inputs before adding value.
This would ensure that Zimbabwe produces high-quality, reputable products capable of accessing international markets, Dr. Wushi said.
“The CBCA remains a key trade facilitation tool in the context of the CFA. Zimbabwe can therefore only benefit from tangible benefits from this multilateral trade agreement if we produce competitive quality products and export them to the region,” Dr. Wushi said.
Bureau Veritas is mandated by the government, through the Ministry of Industry and Trade, to ensure that the quality of products imported into Zimbabwe is regulated or meets minimum safety, health and quality standards.
Recently, the government has also contracted other companies including the Standards Association of Zimbabwe to complement the efforts of Bureau Veritas in quality inspection of products imported into the country.
Recently, there has been strong evidence that consumers and local industry have been benefiting from the CBCA initiative as inferior and unsafe low-priced imports threaten consumer safety and push local products to the brink.
The Contracts Manager at Veritas Zimbabwe Office said his organization, under the CBCA programme, specializes in three categories of contracts – the general goods contract, used vehicles and spare parts, and the standardized goods contract introduced by the Ministry of Industry and Trade to try to boost compliance for informal sector players.
“We have a wide range of products covered by the CBCA. We started with an initial limited list of products in 2015 which has seen a significant increase in the product range. . . . Some of the products regulated under the scheme include a wide range of electrical and electronic products (among them energy products Solar and lighting devices), building materials, hardware, shoes, clothing accessories, automotive products and spare parts.
“In the energy sector, we also have other products such as gasoline, diesel and other related products such as gas containers, in addition to food products,” he said.
“The concern is to protect the consumer from the negative impact of substandard or dangerous products. As a trusted partner, we make every effort in exercising due diligence to ensure that we issue the Certificate of Conformity only to products that have met the required stipulated standards.
The CBCA said there is a need to facilitate cross-border trade while minimizing or minimizing the volume of non-compliant goods in the interest of consumer safety and protection of domestic industry as well as promoting fair competition.
In recent years, the domestic market has been hit by an influx of cheap imported products making local players uncompetitive, while capacity utilization in the manufacturing sector has also declined to an average of 10 percent in 2008.
So far, due to a number of policies in which the government and the private sector have cooperated, capacity utilization in the manufacturing sector is expected to improve this year to more than 60 percent.
This forecast is also due to massive re-equipment and new investments in machinery by the private sector.
In the past four years, the manufacturing sector has recorded steady gains in terms of volume and production capacity.
This trend has also increased the availability of locally produced goods on supermarket shelves.
In 2022, Zimbabwe’s manufacturing sector capacity utilization stood at 56.1 per cent, and the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), the representative body for the industry in the country, has yet to release the results of last year’s manufacturing sector survey report. Announce
