ABSTRACT
Zimbabwe has placed the manufacturing sector at the centre of its development strategy considering it as "the key sector for changing the structure of the economy and for achieving rapid and sustained overall growth and development. However, the extent to which the sector will play the development role seems to be constrained by foreign exchange shortages, balance of payments focus in the control of trade and government policies. The government in Zimbabwe has allocated foreign exchange to users in the various sectors of the economy since unilateral declaration of independence in 1965. The World Bank Mission based their study on the Jansen Report and focused on three subsectors within manufacturing namely steel, fertiliser and textiles. The Trade Liberalisation Study made estimates of nominal and effective protection only without relating these to performance. This research provides a detailed analysis of the development of the manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe in the mid- to late 1980s.
