Zimbabwe Economic News: Huawei Invests In Zim, Chinese Bank Grants loan, Dairibord Plans Capex & Poultry Industry Grows

Huawei is the world's third-largest smartphone maker, with revenues of $39 billion in 2013.

"We have close to 100 employees in Zimbabwe. Our target is to double our staffing levels this year," Mingxuan said.

Huawei announced its presence in the local market through a partnership with the country's largest telecommunications firm, Econet Wireless last year. Through Econet, the Chinese giant sells a variety of low and high-end smartphones, tablets and accessories.

But Mingxuan said the company was in the hunt for bigger office space in Zimbabwe and will be holding a series of countrywide road shows to popularise its products. Last year it set up a service centre in the country. Besides smartphones, the Huawei boss said the firm was providing information technology solutions to government as well as equipment to local telecom firms.

"We are the biggest network vendor in Zimbabwe having partnered with NetOne, Telecel, TelOne, Africom, Econet and Liquid Telecom," Mingxuan said. Southerneye 25 Mar 2014

Chinese Bank Grants Zim $218m

China Exim Bank has granted Zimbabwe a $218 million loan to finance installation of a national mobile broadband network ecosystem, businessdaily has learnt.

Chinese firm Huawei Technologies (Huawei), the technical partner in the project, yesterday indicated that it was ready to roll out the programme, which would be structured to include the retail services sector, the network construction sector, the speed of deployment and open access model.

"We hope we will be able to start the programme in the second quarter of this year, but this will depend on how soon the two governments (China and Zimbabwe) would have signed the loan," said Wen Mingxuan, the managing director of Huawei Zimbabwe.
Mingxuan noted that the exercise, which is anticipated to stimulate and sustain the general economy of Zimbabwe in the short and long term, will take between two to three years to complete.

"We are busy preparing the ground work so that once the signing is done we can quickly get to work. Due to the nature of the job we are expecting to double our staff complement from 100 to 200 this year," he said.

Huawei has already implemented 14 national broadband networks globally and recently indicated it was ready to support governments and operators in the region to deploy broadband leveraging on its knowledge throughout the years and ensure economic benefits are achieved.

Market experts contend that the multi-million dollar project is also poised to lure investors in the country's fast growing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector that has vast opportunities for investment. Dailynews 25 Mar 2014

Dairibord Plans $10m Capex

Milk processor Dairibord Holdings (Dairibord) plans to spend $10 million in capital expenditure this year, targeted at consolidating its market share.

Its chief executive Anthony Mandiwanza said the funds will be spent on plants upgrade and procurement of new equipment to boost capacity and efficiencies.

"We are also looking at investing in marketing to increase brand visibility and launch new innovative products and line extension," he told analysts.

This comes as the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed concern- formerly enjoying monopolistic advantages - is facing stiff competition from other players such as Delta Corporation, Dendairy and Gushungo Holdings, among others.

Mandiwanza noted that the group will also invest in research on cost effective ingredients without compromising quality and further upgrade its information technology systems.

"The company will this year buy an additional 200 heifers bringing the total to 290 in 2014 resulting in incremental raw milk volumes of 1,6 million litres per annum," he added.

Dairibord, with other operations in Malawi, has invested $21,6 million between 2009 and 2013 in equipment. Dailynews 23 Mar 2014

Poultry Industry Grows 17%

THE poultry industry in Zimbabwe grew by 17% in 2013, after producing over 64 million broiler day old chicks, from 55 million in the previous year, an industry official said.

"The poultry industry continues to achieve new highs. Monthly broiler chick sales broke the six million mark in September and October," said Solomon Zawe, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Poultry Association.

Broiler meat production from large-scale operators increased to 2,6 tonnes per month, an improvement of 37% over 2012 while estimated total meat production, based on chick sales, increased by 20 percent to nine tonnes per month, he added.

Zawe said the production of eggs by large-scale operators was flat at 25,2 million over the past three years while the total egg production, estimated from day old chick sales increased by 10% over 2012 to 72 million per month.

The industry was concerned about the availability and price of maize, which Zawe said was placing inflationary pressure on the cost of feeds.

"Maize and soya bean consumption continue to increase with the growth of the poultry industry and based on chick sales is estimated to be 21 tonnes per month and 15 tonnes per month," said Zawe.

Average prices of key raw materials were significantly higher in 2013, especially maize; solvent extracted soya meal; maize bran; wheat bran; meat and bone meal and fishmeal.

"Between January and December, the maize price increased by 12 percent, solvent extracted meal decreased by 7%, wheat bran increased by 12% and maize bran increased by 17%," he said. Southerneye 25 Mar 2014