Zimbabwe - Overseas Development Institute

i-iz Additionally, i t i s also important to h i g h l i g h t that
..T zz ths value of the exports of f e r r o - a l l o y s , cotton l i n t
= -.z I'.eel products doubling from $197 mn i n 1980/81 to $412 mn i n
iilz li z'r.a proportion of "other" manufactured exports rose, i f
-L--_r = llT, from 42.7% to 43.6% of a l l manufactured exports.
? = = £:r-S *-:-y t h i s r e v e r s a l i n the d e c l i n e of manufactured exports
r,-g"-t have occurred i n the l a s t few years are discussed below,
e s p e c i a l l y i n Section 3.3.
We now s h i f t a t t e n t i o n from exports to imports. Manufactured
a r t i c l e s imported i n t o a country f a l l i n t o three groups:
those that are purchased d i r e c t l y for f i n a l consumption (consumer
and durable products); those that are to be used as inputs i n t o
production ( i n c l u d i n g manufacturing production) and, f i n a l l y ,
plant and machinery which i s used to expand the productive base
of the economy. In general as a country i n d u s t r i a l i z e s , manufactured
imports w i l l r i s e i n value^^ but t h e i r composition w i l l
change. Over time one would expect there to be a reduction i n
the proportion (and perhaps, though not n e c e s s a r i l y , the t o t a l
quantity) of more simple manufactured imports - many products at
the consumer end of the market - and f o r the imports of more
complex manufactured products, intermediate inputs and plant and
machinery to r i s e - i n the case of Zimbabwe, those c l a s s i f i e d as
products from sub-sectors (6), (7), (9) and (10).
In rather crude terms, t h i s pattern i s observable f o r
Zimbabwe'". Grouping manufactured imports i n t o the production
c l a s s i f i c a t i o n for Zimbabwean industry reveals that i n 1952/53,
imports of simpler (mostly consumption) goods accounted f o r 36%
of t o t a l manufactured imports, while more complex (intermediate
and c a p i t a l ) goods accounted f o r 65% of the t o t a l . By 1964/65
the simpler, mostly consumption, goods had f a l l e n to 27% of the
t o t a l and by 1982/83 they accounted f o r only 11% of t o t a l
manufactured goods''. In contrast, 86% of a l l manufactured
imports were more complex, mostly intermediate and c a p i t a l
products' * .
A f u r t h e r i n d i c a t o r of the process of i n d u s t r i a l development
would be provided by analysing the degree to which, over time,
the o r i g i n of the composition of inputs i n t o manufacturing
production changes. In general one would expect that as a
country i n d u s t r i a l i z e s , i n c r e a s i n g amounts e s p e c i a l l y of i n t e r ­
mediate and c a p i t a l goods w i l l be made domestically (with a
decreasing f o r e i g n exchange component i n t h e i r production) rather
than being imported d i r e c t l y . There are, r e g r e t t a b l y , no
r e l i a b l e time s e r i e s data to analyse the respective proportion of
purchases made by the manufacturing sector which are imported and
are purchased d o m e s t i c a l l y " . However data from the 1965
input/output model, supplemented by the 1980 UNCTAD update of
these f i g u r e s f o r 1975 and by crude estimates made i n the 1986
UNIDO study of.the manufacturing sector (1986b:41, 70) f o r the
period 1980-82 provide the best time s e r i e s a v a i l a b l e . These are
shown i n Table 7. O v e r a l l t h i s shows d i r e c t imports o v e r a l l
f a l l i n g from 42% of t o t a l inputs purchased i n 1965 to 35% i n 1975
and down to about 23% of t o t a l purchases by the e a r l y 1980s. For
the l a t t e r period these vary from a low of 2.4% for