Levious Chiukira on Customs and Trade

What is a bonded warehouse? A bonded warehouse is a place, a building or other secured area in which dutiable goods may be stored for after importation or manufacture without payment of duties due to customs. In simple terms, it is a duty-free zone or area which has been granted the rights to store goods waiting final clearance by customs.  Bonded warehouses provide specialized storage services such as deep freeze or bulk liquid storage, commodity processing, and coordination with transportation, and are an integral part of the global supply chain. There are basically two types of bonded warehouses namely wet and dry. Wet bonded warehouses are the ones in which alcohol and tobacco may be stored. Dry storage are for any other goods as approved by the Commissioner. The main objective of using a bonded warehouse is to keep all materials at stock, till the time they are to be used, sold or transported to somewhere else in the country or outside for exports. How does a bonded wa...

  The introduction of the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA) brought joy and hope to both domestic and foreign investors who had endured the tiresome and bureaucratic processes experienced in the past. With the promulgation of the ZIDA Act, it was a signal from the government that the days of the honeymoon were over to unnecessary bottlenecks, which resulted in the loss of potential investments in the country. The ZIDA comes when Zimbabwe is recovering from an economic meltdown which has resulted in capital flight, downsizing and closure of formal business. The same epoch also resulted in the mushrooming of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which took advantage of the gaps and created employment for laid-off workers. There have been calls for policies and regulations to support the growth of the SME sector, and research has shown that they contribute to over 50% of the country’s GDP. What is lacking in Zimbabwe has been having the right policies that assist in the...