RBZ, partners to hold consultative meetings

Economy
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) and its partners in the banking and financial services sector will this month hold consultative meetings aimed at re-introducing the Tourism Receipts Accounting System for export proceeds

THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) and its partners in the banking and financial services sector will this month hold consultative meetings aimed at re-introducing the Tourism Receipts Accounting System for export proceeds from the hunting sector (Form TRAS 2) in a bid to curb leakages of foreign exchange from the national economy. Tarisai Mandizha Business Reporter

The consultations will begin tomorrow in Harare.

In a statement, RBZ deputy governor Charity Dhliwayo said export earnings from the hunting safari tourism sub-sector were currently fraught with many challenges that included delays in processing of manual export documentation, high cost of printing five copies of each hunting return form TR2, high costs associated with paper filing and documentation retrieval and lack of operational transparency resulting in serious leakages of foreign exchange from the national economy.

“The RBZ, together with ZTA (Zimbabwe Tourism Authority), ZPWMA (Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority), SOAZ (Safari Operators’ Association of Zimbabwe) and BAZ (Bankers’ Association of Zimbabwe) wishes to advise all safari operators, taxidermists, hunting trophy processors and banks to attend consultative workshops on the computerisation of the hunting return Form TR2 at centres in Harare.

“In order to enhance facilitation of exports of hunting trophies and establishment of an effective monitoring system, the Monetary Policy Statement issued on January 29 2014 and Exchange Control Directive RP09 dated January 31 2014 issued to the authorised dealers emphasised the need to have a robust export processing system that ensures accurate and effective accounting of hunting export receipts, easily accessible online processing of export documentation and adaptability to any policy enhancements,” Dhliwayo said.

She said Form TR2 would be upgraded to Form TRAS 2.

She said the tourism receipts hunting return Form TRAS 2 would be effective, robust, efficient, all-encompassing, adaptive, convenient and user–friendly system which is a web-based application for recording hunting export receipts and enables hunting safari operators, professional hunters, taxidermists, trophy hunting processors, banks and international marketing agents to access export documentation 24 hours, real time and on-line.

The RBZ boss said all stakeholders including the RBZ, ZPWMA, ZTA, hunting safari operators, taxidermists, trophy hunting processors, banks and international marketing agents would be linked online.