Zimbabwe approves duty-free import for basic food items

HARARE – Zimbabwe has suspended import duties on a list of scarce basic food items, including rice and cooking oil, for the first six months of 2009, state-run media reported on Monday.

The list, published in an official gazette at the weekend by the acting finance minister Patrick Chinamasa, includes rice in husk, husked brown rice, wheat, rye flour, maize flour, potato flour, soyabean, vegetable and groundnut oil, margarine and salt.
Non-edible products included toothpaste, bath soap and washing powder, The Herald reported.
Presenting the 2009 budget in late January, Chinamasa said while the country tried to restore domestic production of basic commodities, it needed to support imports of basic goods, the report said.
The new measure, valid until June 30, would be reviewed depending on the expansion of the country’s industrial capacity to meet local need, the report added.
Figures in January from the World Food Programme indicated that more than half of Zimbabwe’s 12 million people did not have enough to eat.
An estimated three million Zimbabweans have fled the country’s economic and political instability, and are now supporting their families with both cash and food.
Consecutive years of drought and a land reform programme launched in 2000, in which some mostly 4 000 white-owned commercial farms were seized and redistributed to blacks, have added to the country’s difficulties.
The scheme has drastically reduced agricultural production, which once accounted for 40 per cent of the economy, as most of the new beneficiaries lack both farming equipment and expertise.
A decade ago, Zimbabwe produced enough maize to feed the nation and export a surplus.
– Nampa-AFP