SADC summit on industrialization opens in Zimbabwe capital

An extraordinary summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Heads of State opened Wednesday to consider and adopt a 48-year industrialization strategy aimed at accelerating industrialization in the 15-memenbr regional group.

The summit is a follow up to the 34th SADC summit held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe in 2014 where a decision was made for the region to craft an industrialization strategy to spur regional economic development.

The 48-year industrialization strategy, once adopted by the SADC leaders, will run from 2015 to 2063 in a three-phased duration.

"The strategy is anchored on three pillars, namely industrialization as a champion of economic and technological transformation, competitiveness as an active process to move from comparative advantage to competitive edges and regional integration and geography as the context for industrial development and economic prosperity," said SADC executive secretary Stergomena Lawrence tax.

He said effective implementation of the strategy should result in increased intra-regional trade within SADC.

In his opening address, SADC chairperson and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe bemoaned the continued reliance by the sub region on exportation of raw materials, and stressed the need for investment in value addition so that the region derives maximum benefits from its abundant natural resources.

"By exporting our natural resources in their raw form, we are not only earning marginal benefits from them, but are, in essence, compromising our efforts to create jobs, or diversify our products, or even develop our industries, and are ultimately, exposing our economies to the vagaries of the fluctuations of the global resource markets," Mugabe said.

SADC, he said, had remained as a source of unprocessed agricultural produce earning a mere 10 percent of the actual value of its products.

"It is imperative for us to reverse this trend if we are to achieve self-sustaining development for our countries. It is only through adding value to our products that we can make the first step," he said.

The SADC region is endowed with abundant and diverse natural resources, with its mineral sector contributing 72 percent to the world's platinum group metals, 55 percent of diamonds, 41 percent of chromite, 26 percent of gold and 21 percent of zinc.

Mugabe also decried low volumes of SADC intra-trade, with import figures between the region and the Asia Pacific region accounting for 45 percent while with the European Union stands at 27 percent.

Imports from the region are a paltry 10 percent, with raw materials and semi-processed goods accounting for the bulk of the exchange, Mugabe said.

As the region forges ahead with industrialization efforts, Mugabe stressed the need for the region to develop effective financing mechanisms to fund the regional industrialization strategy.

"We can not expect those who benefit from our status as exporters of raw materials to fund our efforts to wean ourselves from this unequal relationship," Mugabe said.

The one-day extra-ordinary summit is being attended by leaders and ministers from the regional bloc member states. Endi