By Tapiwanashe W Mangwiro.
HARARE – (News of The South) – Zimbabwe missed its 2019 full year export revenue target by 6% as it racked in US$4.2 billion, after it had forecasted US$4.5 billion in revenue. The country did reduce its FY deficit to US$549 million after it recorded trade surpluses in November and December 2019 as semi-manufactured goods picked up pace. The deficit narrowed by US$1.8 billion representing a -72.2% trade deficit decline.
Hyperinflation and a rapidly weakening currency have all aided weak domestic demand and a fall in local economic activity. This can be seen by trends noticed in the import data with raw materials such as fertilized eggs, soya beans, carboys and bottles which averaged over a million dollars a month in the past two years averaged around US$500 000 a month.
With a target of 30% of exports to be of manufactured goods, the country seems to be receding backward as they dropped by -2.86% year-on-year. This has been as a result of poor policies, hyperinflation that has caused companies to scale down production as well as shortage of electricity and clean water for production purposes. Zimbabwe has vast mineral resources which the country needs to convert to products in order to realize more value than being a price taker on the raw product.
Exports for the year 2019 were US$4.2 billion made up of 90.38% raw materials, 5.86% manufactured goods and 3.73% semi manufactured goods. Food and beverages account for 2.52% of total exports and 46.31% of the manufactured goods exports. Processed sugar, cigarettes, fermented tea remained the main export drivers for food and beverages with a total of US$14.04 million.
In December exports were up 34.3% year on year to US$489 million while they rose 2.94% from November after increases in the value of parts of goods and anomalies or maybe its once-off increases in steam turbines which after eleven months of nothing suddenly contributed US$14 million and some gains on obscure goods such as Instruments and apparatus for physical or chemical analysis increased 12 fold in December to US$137 152. Anomalies with the data is somewhat of a concern as Diamonds after months of recording over a million dollars, recorded US$0.00 in November and contributed over a million in December.
The countries ability to produce agricultural and horticultural products continued to be hampered by foreign currency and electricity issues of late with the companies not being able to source raw materials from foreign suppliers which is evident by the 25.03% drop in the exports of the goods year-on-year. Horticulture produce are on the drop with roses and flowers experiencing a drop of 3.24% in value to US$1.64 million. Cumulatively value is at US$63.74 million for 2019 year to date which is a 5.02% decrease from the 2018 figures but 42.81% above the 2017 income.
Imports for the month of December dropped by 3% to US$418 million from November imports of US$431 million. For the full year 2019 imports dropped to US$4.8 billion from US6.4 billion in the previous year. The drop can be attributed to low disposable incomes of the citizens as well as the rapid depreciation of the local currency which has made imports more expensive as well as lack of foreign currency to import.
The country imported diesel worth US$856 million and unleaded petrol worth US$281 million in 2019. In total the imported fuel amounted to US$1.137 billion which constituted 23.63% of total Imports for the year. In order to cover our fuel import bill the country needs to export gold totaling 25,266kgs in 2019, at an average price of US$45,000 per KG. However the country only exported gold worth US$1.058 billion in 2019 which was US$79 million short and was covered from other export revenue.
South Africa continues to be the biggest provider for Zimbabwe as the country shipped goods worth US$195 million, which is 1% up from the November levels due to citizens returning home for the festive holidays. South Africa accounted for 47% of our imports which are mostly electrical goods and food and beverages. Singapore being our fuel provider continues to be one of our biggest import provider as it accounted for 18% of our imports.
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