Levious Chiukira on Customs and Trade

By Levious Chiukira   Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) continue to face unwarranted barriers in cross-border trade under the current trading regime. Unless specific measures are taken to eliminate these barriers under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), SMEs will continue to face the same challenges. The  World Bank  estimates that if the AfCFTA's goals are fully realized, 50 million people could escape extreme poverty by 2035, and real income could rise by 9 per cent. Under deep integration, Africa's exports to the rest of the world would go up by 32 per cent by 2035, and intra-African exports would grow by 109 per cent, led by manufactured goods. However, these predictions were made without adequate policy interventions to facilitate SMEs to benefit from the establishment fully. Research by  International Trade Centre (2022)  highlighted that despite the excitement in capitals and overseas about the AfCFTA, only some African firms are aware of the regiona

  By Tanatsiwa Dambuza Special Economic Zones  are geographical regions with economic laws that are more free-market-oriented than a country's typical national law. Special Economic Zones (SEZ) are still in their nascent embryotic stage yet progressively developing in Zimbabwe. The  Special Economic Zones Act  [Chapters 14-34], which came into force in November 2016 and was repealed by the ZIDA ACT, provided for the establishment of the Zimbabwe Special Economic Zones Authority, which according to section 20, has the power or authority to declare any area or premises to be a special economic zone and to amend, add to or abolish any special economic. The core functions of the Authority included administering and controlling SEZs, granting investment licences, and monitoring activities of approved investments.  Zimbabwe's main objective under Zimbabwe Open for Business Mantra is to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), boost exports, link to global value chains and struc