PREPARATIONS for the Sadc Industrialisation Week (SIW) are firmly on course amid revelations that 1 353 individuals have thus far registered to participate in the event to be held in Harare from July 28 to August 2, 2024, official data shows.
Zimbabwe will host the 7th annual SIW, where industry leaders and other stakeholders will discuss industrialisation and economic growth in the region.
Out of the registered prospective participants, 286 are foreigners while 1 067 are locals.
About 53 investors have been booked for the event.
A total of 357 exhibitors and 13 officials from the SADC secretariat have also been booked for the Industrialisation Week.
Among the registrants, 51 are presenters; broken into 33 foreigners and 18 locals.
The SIW, to be officially opened by President Mnangagwa on July 31, will commence with a Media Awareness Day on July 28.
It will be followed by Investment Conference to be officiated by Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, on July 29.
Plenary sessions are planned for July 30.
Zimbabwe's Minister of Industry and Commerce Mangaliso Ndlovu and the private sector will host a welcome cocktail, gala dinner and fashion show on August 1, 2024.
The event will be wrapped up by organised factory visits to prominent and innovative local companies, to showcase Zimbabwe's industrial potential.
The week-long events will be held at Rainbow Towers in Harare and will be hosted by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in collaboration with the SADC Secretariat, SADC Business Council, and the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI).
"The whole idea is to bring policymakers, academia private sector and stakeholders to introspect and see if we are on course to meeting our goals as espoused in the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap (SISR), which was launched in 2015.
"This year's edition, will for the first time have a day dedicated to an investment conference. We came up with this idea because we believe to drive industrialisation we need to attract quality, affordable and patient capital.
"We therefore thought of setting a day aside to have our multilateral financial institutions, together with other investors, interacting with industry to identify and explore opportunities in the SADC region," highlighted Minister Ndlovu in an interview.
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SIW is an annual public-private engagement platform designed to foster new opportunities for intra-African trade, develop cross-border value chains and identify investment opportunities in the SADC region.
It will precede the senior officials and council of ministers meetings and the main Sadc Summit, which will take place from August 9 to 18, 2024, at the New Parliament Building.
Traditionally, SIW is organised by the SADC Summit host Government, through the ministry responsible for industry, the SADC Business Council and the SADC Secretariat.
The event has been held six times, starting with Eswatini in 2016, South Africa (2017), Namibia (2018), Tanzania (2019), Malawi (2021), Democratic Republic of Congo (2022) and Zimbabwe are the host for this year's edition.
One of the convention's key objectives this year is to popularise the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap (2025-2063) (SISR) to ensure a wider understanding and acceptability among the SADC community, including governments, the members of the public, and private sector, academia, research institutions and think tanks.
SIW, which aims to structurally transform the SADC region through industrialisation, is the brainchild of the 2015 SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government.
It is also looking to identify Industrialisation projects that can be jointly implemented by the public and private sectors within the SADC member states.
As part of its support for industrialisation in Southern Africa, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) Sub-regional Office for Southern Africa (SRO-SA) will organise two expert sessions during the SADC Industrialisation Week in Harare.
