Times Of Swaziland: ‘EXTEND TRADING HOURS FOR QUICK RECOVERY’

‘EXTEND TRADING HOURS FOR QUICK RECOVERY’
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BY ASHMOND NZIMA on 20/07/2021 08:14:00


MBABANE - SARFED is proposing the extension of trading hours to enable quick
business recovery.
Businesses can now operate up to 5pm after the relaxed curfew announced last
Friday. The Southern Africa Research Foundation (SARFED) observed that since the
advent of COVID-19 in 2020, the business climate in the country had been faced
with several challenges which also contributed towards the closure of most
businesses, especially those firms at emergent level.  “The competitive
business climate of the country has a downward trend, hence being a potential
threat of business viability and investor confidence in the country. Urgent
measures to create business incentives would bring back the country to its
original competitive position in both regional and global markets,” said
SARFED Regional Coordinator George Choongwa.
Choongwa said relaxed regulations would result in an increase in business
establishment which would be one of the solutions to high level of unemployment,
which might have come up as a result of large business closures.
Contributed
“The country is still faced with fiscal imbalances despite its attempt to
address the situation through the engagement of several structural adjustment
measures which contributed towards the revision and reduction of the country’s
recurrent spending trends, such as the freezing of the government wage bill.
“However, with the government’s interventions by relaxations of trading
regulations, the trends of revenue collection through various structures are
likely to take an uptrend in the long run as the economy stabilises,” stressed
SARFED. Choongwa also highlighted that despite some success in containing the
wage bill, the fiscal deficit of the country between the year 2019 and 2020
remained elevated, translating into further domestic arrears and public debt
build-up. However, on the positive side, there was temporary surge in
manufacturing exports and weak domestic demand contributed to improve the
external current account. SARFED felt if government declared a friendly business
environment as a means of attracting economically driven investors, the chances
of becoming competitive in both regional and global markets were very high.
Strategy
The country had already built its strategic competency in regions like the
Southern African Customs Union (SACU), Southern African Development Community
(SADC) and The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) with high
possibility of even trading on the COMESA-EAC-SADC tripartite African markets.
Another recommendation made by SARFED is the improvement on the business
ecosystem. This would promote the development of a strong, competitive and
sustainable value supply chain systems. “Subsidise business utilities such  as
electricity and internet tariffs and fuel. These factor inputs were essential
with the determination of business sustainability and competitiveness,”
suggested SARFED.