By Christine Lethokuhle Mabhena in Bulawayo
The 2019 edition of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) has kick-started in Bulawayo with several small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and women owned businesses showcasing their assortment of products and services to the business visitors today.
The exhibition centre was a hive of activity, exhibitors and business visitors interacted on the exhibition floor. Several SMEs looked forward to clinching more lucrative business deals and hoped to get more customers to buy their products.
Harare based SME, Reality Industrial and Mining sales and marketing manager, Mr Nyasha Kazembe told the Harare Post that so far the trade fair had brought positive outcome for their business, with a lot of local and regional business people enquiring about their products.
“We are a leading company that specializes in decoration and partitioning. Our products include venetian blinds, office and domestic blinds, hospital curtains.
“So far, we have received a quiet significant number of enquiries for our products from our target market which is Non-Governmental Organisations, Government hospitals and departments, corporates and individuals.”
Several SMEs owned by women displayed their products under the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development banner categories. The clusters included the SME engineering, gender, SME leather, business incubation and business linkages, tourism, arts, craft and mining.
A Bulawayo based art and craft entrepreneur, Felicity Dube showcasing under the Womens’ Affairs Ministry thanked the Government for working through the ministry to uplift their business as they were offered a chance to exhibit at this year’s trade showcase free of charge.
“I would like to thank the Ministry of Women Affairs for allowing us to showcase under their banner. We were not going to be able to pay for ourselves to exhibit at this year’s trade fair.
“The Ministry is playing a crucial role in uplifting our women businesses as they offer us these opportunities and also give us loans to keep our business floating.”
The 2019 theme is ‘propagating industrial growth through trade and investment’ and 532 direct local exhibitors have been booked compared with 491 at the same time last year. Sixteen foreign countries participated this year compared to 17 that participated last year. Out of 532 exhibitors this year, 16% are first-time exhibitors who are displaying their different products ranging from education services, agriculture equipment to food manufacturing.
