DEVELOPING and strengthening value chains is one of the proven strategic approaches towards creating a vibrant industrial base and a thriving economy.
For developing countries like Zimbabwe, which is driving at creating high value-employment and export-generating potential, establishing robust value chains could be a game changer towards attaining the desired upper middle-income vision by 2030.
This makes identifying market-driven value chains capable of competing and delivering in the regional and global markets, more urgent.
In economics language the term “value chain” is used to refer to a set of interdependent industrial or business activities that create added value around a product, process or service. This extends to groups of interlinked economic actors that tend to operate in a strategic network of some sort, across companies — whether small or big.
Given the transformative impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs), which are fast becoming a dominant factor across the spectrum, the country needs to invest more in domesticating the sector’s value chain so as to derive more economic gains.
This would also buttress the import substitution focus, which seeks to tame perennial trade deficits by increasing domestic productive capacity in key economic sectors through value addition and beneficiation.
ICT-led industrialisation is a key ingredient in the structural transformation of economies, hence Zimbabwe needs to fully embrace the global digital revolution to ensure local industry realises the efficiency benefits and cost savings associated with modern hard and soft infrastructure.
Last week’s commissioning of the country’s first ICT equipment assembly plant, owned by the Zimbabwe Information Technology Company (Zitco) by President Mnangagwa, is highly encouraging and commendable.
As a joint venture between TelOne, Chinese company Inspur and a Government-owned entity — Flushcord Enterprises, Zitco would assemble desktop computers, laptops, tablets, prepaid electricity meters, smart water meters and other ICT-orientated equipment.
The bold move is expected to enable Zimbabwe to substantially trim its import bill and help create more jobs for thousands of ICT technicians and start-ups.
According to Trademap, with concurrence of the United Nations Conference on Trade and development (Unctad) statistics, Zimbabwe has been relying more on imports of key ICT equipment and accessories for years.
The imported products mainly include transmission apparatus for radio and television, data processing units, base stations equipment, magnetic or optical readers, telephone and cellular phone gadgets, printing machines and projectors among other critical parts and accessories.
These are mainly sourced from China, USA, UK, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Egypt, France, Japan, Italy, Mauritius and Japan, among others.
The launch of the first ICT assembly plant, as President Mnangagwa put it, is in sync with the Government’s thrust of innovation, science and technology development.
“The facility will help to promote technology transfer, foster human capital development, enhance import substitution and provide robust platforms upon which innovation and design can be commercialised,” said President Mnangagwa in his commissioning speech.
Indeed, the local ICT assembly plant is proof that ICT devices could be manufactured locally and Zimbabwe, with private sector input, has to move with speed in scaling up this project. This is possible since the country already has skilled manpower and is endowed with most of the natural resources that could be value added and beneficiated domestically to supply raw materials to ICT manufacturing industries.
“It’s saddening to note that most of the ICT equipment and hardware were in the past imported, hence limiting the availability of the ICT gadgets across the public sector and our communities in general,” says Dr Jenfan Muswere, the Minister of ICT, Postal and Courier Services.
“This challenge seriously constrained the strategy of modernising the economy for enhanced productivity and quality service delivery in addition to slowing the pace of bridging the digital divide.”
He stressed that a digitally enabled economy was one of the key priorities under the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1): 2021-2025, which anchors the “Smart Zimbabwe 2030 Master Plan”.
Dr Muswere expressed optimism the new ICT plant would assist in the creation of an ICT value chain that spans skills development, manufacturing, distribution, retailing and consumption.
“It will help Zimbabwe acquire additional comparative and competitive advantages to those already existing, hence further promoting economic development and sustainable livelihoods,” said the minister.
The commissioning of the ICT assembly plant follows the recent official opening of the National Data Centre and High-Performance Computer Centre, which strongly confirms that Zimbabwe is on the right direction to realising increased digitilisation gains.
From a Government policy perspective, all the pieces are now in place for the public sector to develop online digital services and move from manual to automated systems.
Ministries and departments now have to set the timelines for migration to automated systems, including putting in place the needed ICT staff. The public sector can no longer be the follower of technological change and only play catch-up all the time. It has to be on the driving seat.
The local ICT assembly business further buttresses efforts to revive the TelOne factory, which had been lying idle owing to changes in technology.
“This assembly plant has advanced our resuscitation efforts through which we are pursuing other ventures like smartphone assembly, renewable energy manufacturing and electronic waste management among others,” said Dr Muswere.
TelOne managing director Mrs Chipo Mutasa said the assembly plant has started operating with the first run of 2 500 desktop computers and laptops having already been made.
“It is expected that after the commissioning, Zitco will now be moving towards full production where a production capacity of at least 50 000 and up to 150 000 ICT units can be achieved annually,” she said.
“This production level will be supported by a staff complement of about 100 in-house with at least 300 jobs expected to be created in both upstream and downstream industries.”
Industry leaders also expect the manufacture of ICT hardware locally to trigger the development of software packages riding on the abundant intellectual capacity in the country.
This creates a wider opportunity for innovation hubs and industrial parks at institutions of higher learning who should move speedily in developing appropriate solutions and applications towards the growth of big data economy in line with the expectations of the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Domesticating the ICT value chain in this regard, is expected to go a long way in enabling the country to harness its rich endowment of human resources with ICT skills domiciled within the country and beyond.
This strongly buttresses Vision 2030 ideals, and would no doubt unlock a host of export opportunities, which will earn the country the much-needed foreign currency and diversify the economy from reliance on commodity exports.
Going forward, the Government would have to continuously fine tune its policies to incentivise producers through provision of an environment that encourages ICT innovation and more investment in the local development and manufacture of ICT goods. This calls for mainstreaming of ICT training into different levels of the country’s education system, which will make life-long learning systems that enhance utilisation of advanced ICT hard and soft infrastructure.-chronicle.c.zw