US embassy cable - 04HARARE909

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HARARE 000909 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR AF/S 
NSC FOR SENIOR AFRICA DIRECTOR JFRAZER 
USDOC FOR AMANDA HILLIGAS 
TREASURY FOR OREN WYCHE-SHAW 
PASS USTR FLORIZELLE LISER 
STATE PASS USAID FOR MARJORIE COPSON 
 
E. O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON, EAID, EAGR, EINV, PGOV, ZI, Economic Situation 
SUBJECT:  Zim economy keeps tumbling 
 
Ref:  Harare 703 
 
1. (SBU) Summary: Six months on the job, Reserve Bank 
(RBZ) Governor Gideon Gono has transformed the GOZ's 
style of economic management.  Still, Gono has not 
substantially tempered the GOZ's two most damaging 
economic obsessions:  a) an overvalued local currency and 
b) excessive government taxation and regulation of the 
economy. Statistics and informal exchanges with 
businessmen suggest Zimbabwe is producing and exporting 
less since Gono became RBZ head.  At best, he can take 
credit for better policing of the financial sector and 
slowing but not yet turning around the decline. End 
summary. 
 
"Statistics" suggest exports are dropping 
----------------------------------------- 
2. (U) For the Zimbabwean economy, few statistics are 
more important than export growth.  Whether it's tobacco, 
cotton, gold, platinum or wood, Zimbabwe produces 
primarily for customers abroad.  Even construction, 
transport and financial services rise and fall with 
exports.  Unfortunately, up-to-date official statistics 
do not accurately capture export trends.  In nearly every 
public appearance, RBZ Governor Gono says the GOZ took in 
more from exports during the first four months of 2004 
than during all of 2003.  The boast is factually correct 
but meaningless in balance-of-payments terms, since most 
exporters did not declare revenue prior to late-2003. 
 
3. (U) How then to measure export trends in a statistical 
wasteland?  We have begun tracking imports from Zimbabwe 
recorded through U.S. and Europe customs receipts.  From 
2002 to 2003, Zimbabwean exports to the U.S. shrank 45 
percent and to the European Union 21 percent.  This is a 
staggering 1-year drop at a time when Sub-Saharan exports 
grew substantially - by 30 percent, in fact, to the U.S. 
Unfortunately, Gono's arrival only seems to have slowed 
Zimbabwe's downward trend:  Comparing Jan-March 2003 with 
the same months in 2004, Zimbabwean exports to the U.S. 
fell a further 19 percent. 
 
4. (SBU) Information we have gleaned from firms in key 
sectors seems to affirm that production is dropping.  A 
rep from Windmill, the country's largest fertilizer 
producer, tells us 2004 sales have been slower than 2003 
- when Zimbabwe experienced, incidentally, its lowest 
fertilizer sales in 30 years.  Early 2005 projections for 
tobacco, once the top export, indicate the lowest harvest 
since 1952; cotton could overtake it as the leading cash 
crop.  Lodge occupancy appears even lower than last year. 
Most miners and manufacturers tell us they have pared 
production to a minimum. 
 
Currency auctions inflate zimdollar 
----------------------------------- 
5. (U) The currency auctions, introduced in January, 
continue to damage importer and exporter alike.  Few 
importers can access foreign exchange through the twice- 
weekly auctions.  Those bringing finished products into 
the country win auctions through connections, not by 
outbidding others.  The lucky winners often wait 4-6 
weeks for their forex.  Conversely, importers who source 
forex through the parallel market risk incarceration. 
Gono changed calculations for import duty from Z$55:US$ 
to the auction rate, a 76-fold increase - perhaps an 
economically sound move but one that had a devastating 
overnight impact on imports. 
 
6. (U) Exporters, on the other hand, confront an 
overvalued exchange rate that lags behind inflation. 
Since the introduction of the auction system and decision 
to overvalue the local currency, Zimbabwe has become one 
of Southern Africa's highest cost producers.  In 
addition, the GOZ obliges most exporters to pay one- 
quarter of revenue in an indirect tax.  Low interest 
loans help somewhat, but nearly all exporters tell us 
they have scaled back production. 
 
GOZ still distrusts market forces 
--------------------------------- 
7. (U) Through heavy taxation and regulation, the GOZ 
still wants to steer private sector activity.  Due to 
inflationary bracket creep, the top bracket now begins at 
a monthly salary of Z$400,000 (US$75).  Every second 
Zimbabwean grows maize, but police roadblocks prevent 
these farmers from moving more than 150 kgs of maize-meal 
to a neighboring town.  By February, parastatal ZESA had 
raised electricity rates so high on exporters that most 
had larger energy bills than payrolls. 
 
8. (U) Furthermore, the RBZ is preoccupied with 
convincing embassies, NGOs and Zimbabweans abroad to use 
official channels for forex transfers.  The RBZ seems not 
to appreciate (or care) that remittances register equally 
in current accounts whether or not they flow through 
official coffers.  If the RBZ wants to increase 
remittances, it should allow the zimdollar to depreciate. 
 
9. (U) The GOZ determines who gets forex, who accesses 30- 
percent loans, who buys maize-meal at Z$120 (US$.02)/kilo 
(about one-tenth of market value), who retains their 
farm, who receives an expropriated farm and who faces 
jailed for routine currency trading.  Market forces 
account for little.  Even more worrisome, there are 
murmurs in the State media of renewed price controls as 
parliamentary elections near.  The GOZ has already 
asserted itself in recent weeks by forcing many private 
schools and commuter vans to drastically lower fees. 
 
Broader macro-trends and comment 
-------------------------------- 
10. (U) Many local businessmen and economists still 
extend Gono the benefit of the doubt.  They argue he has 
done all he can to liberalize the economy in the face of 
stiff political resistance.   Gono has created a 
mechanism to regulate the zimdollar's value, making each 
adjustment no longer a cabinet decision.  He has freely 
offered low interest loans to exporting firms.  Bringing 
needed dynamism to the RBZ, Gono has reached out to 
Western embassies more than any GOZ higher-up.  He has 
improved oversight of financial services, ending much of 
the speculative activity by shaky banks and other 
outfits. 
 
11. (SBU) Gono's cracking down on parallel trading, 
however, has hurt exporters more than cheap loans have 
helped.  During Gono's half-year tenure, Zimbabwe has 
lost significant export revenue.  As our exchanges with 
exporters attest, some business has already migrated to 
neighboring countries. (In reftel, we relayed Colgate- 
Palmolive's phasing out of exports from Zimbabwe.) 
Additionally, the GOZ has not applied the parallel 
trading crackdown equally, further eroding rule-of-law. 
Parallel trading is jaywalking-type crime that every 
Zimbabwean middle-class-and-up was guilty of before Gono 
became RBZ head. 
 
12. (U) Finally, the GOZ seems to be expanding monetary 
supply at an alarming clip.  (Statistics are too out-of- 
date to be useful.)  So far this year, there have been 
two principal expansionary triggers - Z$700 billion 
(US$132 million) for the low-interest loan facility and 
Z$1,000 billion (US$$189 million) for insolvent banks. 
Intermarket's chief economist guesses first quarter 
monetary growth may be as high as 500 percent.  In spite 
of GOZ efforts to contain rates of inflation and exchange 
depreciation, it is possible this monetary growth will 
spark renewed demand-pull inflation later in 2004.  Until 
Gono demonstrates a willingness to tackle the GOZ's two 
sacred cows - overvalued zimdollar and excessive economic 
intervention - we see little prospect of better times 
ahead. 
 
Sullivan