ANOTHER Bulawayo company Polyfoil (Pvt) Ltd is facing liquidation after the High Court issued a provision order to wind up the firm, a clear sign the decline of the city’s businesses and industries continues unabated due to prevailing harsh economic environment.
Own Correspondent
The liquidation of Polyfoil would bring to nearly a hundred companies which have gone under liquidation since last year.
According to a High Court provisional order published last Friday, the company has effectively been placed under provisional liquidation beginning this month.
“Take notice that on September 4, the High Court at Bulawayo issued an order for the provisional liquidation of Polyfoil Zimbabwe (ltd) and that Tapiwa Chizana has been appointed as a provisional liquidator of the company,” part of the order reads.
According to the court order, any interested person wishing to oppose the winding up of the company or any aspect of the application should file a notice of opposition, with the registrar on or before October 2 2013.
The liquidation of the company would worsen Bulawayo industrial quandary, with official statistics from the Industry and Commerce ministry showing that 84 companies closed shop last year and 64 reported to be a dire stress. Several companies including Marvo Stationary Manufacturing and Dunlop Zimbabwe were recently rocked by industrial strikes over unpaid salaries, while several others were mulling retrenchments.
The industry is facing a myriad of challenges, chief among them high operational costs, huge debts — financial constraints exacerbated by high borrowing costs.
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Bulawayo needs $73 million in the short term to recapitalise, but government has been battling to finance industry recovery.
To address the plethora of problems besetting the industry in the city, a local business pressure group Bulawayo Business Arise (BBA) last week submitted a proposal to revive the defunct industry in the city.
BBA said therewere some industries like those in the textile sector which would not recover even if they got fresh capital injection because of cheap imports flooding the market.
As such the government should come with a new business model addressing the stiff competition facing local industry because of cheap imports.
“In Bulawayo, clothing industries will not take off easily unless the issue of markets has been properly addressed through policies that promote local industries,” part of the submission seen by the Southern Eye reads.
“It is time to find our economic model as a country and use it to reposition ourselves for growth and sustainability,” BBA added.
BBA said the Trade and Commerce ministry should work on policies that regulate the influx of imported goods killing the local market and proposed that the government should consider declaring Bulawayo a special economic zone which will usher in a much faster pace of attracting investment.
According to the business pressure group, economic zones have propelled the economic development of countries such as China, India and South Africa as they command incentives that are favourable to investors.
“Our proposal is to establish free trade zone in sectors such as information technology, medicine, and global processing systems and when we have an IT free economic zone, for example, it will lead to Bulawayo emerging as an information Communication region,” part of the submission read.
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