The production of cooking oil has improved in the month of May due to the easing of lockdown regulations in South Africa as this has enabled manufacturing companies to easily import spares and raw materials, an industry official has revealed.
Oil Expressers Association of Zimbabwe (OEAZ) president Busisa Moyo also said that oil producers expect to access foreign currency following the unfreezing of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) letters of credit through Afreximbank. Said Moyo:
Cooking oil supply has greatly improved this month due to easing of the lockdown regulations both in South Africa and locally as we now have easy access to spares and critical raw materials for our production.
During the total lockdown period, we couldn’t access raw materials as most companies were closed in South Africa.
We hope that the improvement in the industries will help all the whole value chain to reach to customers.
On the local front, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) letters of credit through Afreximbank which were frozen during the lockdown are now functional.
With that development, we expect oil producers to access forex to begin massive production.
Cooking oil capacity utilisation has doubled to above 20% from 10% last month.