Some Good News From Zimbawe

OK Zimbabwe revenue rises
By Staff on Jul 07, 2009 with Comments 0

OK Zimbabwe achieved a massive US$19.99 million in two months, a level that would see the retail chain emerging from the woods.

Company chairman, Mr Kahari said the performance in the first two months of their reporting year, that is April and May, was in line with their focus.

“We believe that this trading is sustainable and will increase as product supply continues to improve and disposable income increase. The improvement in funding and the gradual relaxation of payment terms by both foreign and local suppliers complimented by increased local production continue to facilitate business. There have been many entrants into the retail business and competition for the limited disposable income is intense,” said Mr Kahari.

OK said they were posed to aggressively compete in the retail business in order to increase their market share.

There has been a flux of smaller operators who have been picking on the remains of the larger players and these have survived the changes in the monetary policy.

Some of the new entrants have also started taking over from where the likes of OK and TM Supermarkets used to operate but closed shop as a result of reduced supply and demand.

Externally there are some shops from South Africa which have continued to advertise their products as they continue to try and lure the locals to buy from their shops.

Most of the adverts are from shops in Polokwane and Louis Tritchards.

Bumper harvest eases Zimbabwe food shortage print friendly version
author/source:The National (UAE)
published:Sun 5-Jul-2009
posted on this site:Tue 7-Jul-2009
Article Type : News
"Even if there are droughts in the next five or six years, we have adequate stocks"
Thulani Mpofu, Foreign Correspondent

Bulawayo - After two consecutive droughts that left them hungry, Douglas Mpofu, a peasant farmer, and his family have harvested enough corn for the next six years. "We were like hunter-gatherers, eating just the moment we got anything edible," said Mr Mpofu, 60, a married father of five and head of Village 7 in the Bubi district of arid Matabeleland North province. "We woke up every day not knowing what we would eat that day. So when the first rains fell in October last year, we made sure we worked on the fields. Our area has a history of low rains, but this year, we harvested four tonnes of maize. So even if there are droughts in the next five or six years, my family has adequate food stocks." Mr Mpofu’s property, like those at most rural homesteads this year, is graced with a huge raised pole and wire-mesh granary filled with the maize harvest. They stand just behind the main house.

The improved harvest this year has significantly eased food shortages throughout Zimbabwe. Government estimates, corroborated by international donor agencies, say good rainfall during the agricultural season between October and April helped produce a harvest of 1.14 million tonnes of maize across the country, an increase of 130 per cent on the previous harvest. Still, the improved harvest falls 680,000 tonnes short of national food requirements. Gibson Bhebhe, 35, a neighbour of Mr Mpofu, said he harvested 900kg of maize, which can sustain his wife and three children for up to two years. "We are safe food-wise," he said. "It is a good harvest, but I must say we were lucky that our fields were not destroyed by elephants. Some of my neighbours had good crops, but they did not harvest anything after elephants ate everything that was in their fields."

A report by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued last month said food supply had generally improved in Zimbabwe because of an improved harvest and a more liberalised food import policy. High food insecurity persists in some areas, however, the report said. "Liberalisation of the grain market is the most important change in a decade for the improvement of the agriculture sector in Zimbabwe," said an FAO economist, Kisan Gunjal, and co-leader of the United Nations mission that visited Zimbabwe in May and produced the report. "But the full impact of the reform on production next season remains to be seen, especially in light of financial liquidity constraints and other problems of economic transition."

Jan Delbaere, of WFP, who co-led the mission said: "This year’s improved harvest comes after two consecutive years of poor production. Having depleted their food stocks and sold livestock and other assets to cope with the effects of recent crises, many rural households are still struggling to survive." However, the report says, production at the household level failed to reach its potential because of the use of retained grain, including some food aid, as seed, and lack of fertilisers, fuel and draught power. This resulted in late planting and cultivation of smaller plots. The FAO and WFP said in their report that although hunger has reduced, about 2.8 million people would need food aid until next year.

In its own report, Zimbabwe Food Security Outlook (April-September 2009), the Famine Early Warning System Network, a US global food security monitoring agency, said that the majority of rural households’ food crop harvests were likely to last for more than six months, except in the north-eastern districts like Mount Darwin, Rushinga, Hwedza, Mudzi, Mutoko, Seke and Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe. "In these districts, households’ harvests were reduced by a prolonged dry spell in February," the report said. "As such, households in these areas are likely to meet consumption requirements from their own production for about three to four months, after which they will require food assistance. In addition, most of these households have limited access to other income sources, including market gardening, casual labour and livestock sales, to access food on the market. Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe and Rushinga districts are expected to have the least household food production levels – barely enough to cover two months."

In an effort to curb the recurrence of input shortage, the government and some partners are already mobilising farmers’ requirements for the next season, which starts in October. The European Union, working through FAO, has unveiled a scheme to provide 150,000 small-holder farmers with maize and sorghum seed and fertiliser. This is part of an EU food initiative worth 1 billion euros designed to ensure food security in 23 developing countries worldwide, including Zimbabwe. Partson Mlilo, the chief executive of Bubi rural district, said that although some villagers in the area had harvested enough, others still need food aid. They had failed to plant because they lacked farming inputs and because of raids on their crop fields by elephants. "We sit on the district drought relief committee and the picture is mixed," Mr Mlilo said. "Some of the people in our district did well but others didn’t because of lack of inputs and destruction of their crops by elephants or quelea birds."

US$950 million deal with China – is it on, is it off? print friendly version
author/source:SW Radio Africa
published:Mon 6-Jul-2009
posted on this site:Tue 7-Jul-2009
Article Type : News
Denied reports that he contradicted Prime Minister
By Lance Guma

Finance Minister Tendai Biti’s office has denied reports that he contradicted Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s announcement of a US$950 million credit line from China. On Friday several news agencies quoted Biti telling a press conference that the country had not received a single cent from the Chinese. ‘There’s no foundation at all in reports that we have received US$950 million from China,’ the weekly Zimbabwe Standard newspaper quoted him as saying. This was in sharp contrast to Tsvangirai’s announcement last week Tuesday in which he said; ‘While I was away government, through Finance Minister Tendai Biti, also secured lines of credit from China totalling US$950 million.’ On Monday Newsreel was told that Biti used his Friday press conference to deny reports he had signed a much bigger US$5 billion deal with the Chinese, which would have seen the mortgaging off of the country’s platinum resources. An official in Biti’s office told us it was only when the Finance Minister was responding to a question on the US$950 million deal, that he clarified that this was not hard cash, but credit lines.

Muddying the waters even further are claims from Mugabe that the deal with the Chinese was negotiated long before the unity government was formed. Mugabe insisted it was a US$5 billion deal that would be made available to them in tranches. He went on to cite the US$950 million as one such tranche. Newsreel spoke to a journalist who attended last week’s press conference and he said he found it strange that Biti’s office would deny something that the minister had said openly. We are also told Biti confirmed claims by Mugabe that the application for US$950 million was made in 2005, way before the unity government was formed. The Chinese government, through the Eximbank of China, this year requested that Zimbabwe re-activate the application they made back then. Another source told Newsreel Tsvangirai probably jumped the gun in announcing the deal, which is still to be finalized. Prime Minister Tsvangirai meanwhile is said to have met the Chinese ambassador in Harare and the finer details of the deal are being finalized. An MDC official told us the deal would almost certainly go through.