'Consumer spend to remain constrained,' says Zireva

Published: 20 November 2013

OK Zimbabwe CEO Willard Zireva told analysts yesterday that the liquidity crunch will worsen in the short term and business activity is not expected to improve for the remainder of the year as consumer spend will remain constrained.

He said this after OK Zimbabwe recorded a limited revenue growth of 5.4% to $243.6 million mainly due to decrease in demand while profit for the period remained stable.

"Clearly we experienced a diminishing demand and revenue growth was constrained. At the same time we still have had overheads which were still at a higher rate but we've been managing those down and by the time we got to the half year they were almost coming down…

"We've observed the liquidity crunch will worsen in the short term.... The government; the minister of finance specifically, is talking the right language, sending the right messages. He is in a difficult spot and we've to support him as Zimbabweans because the whole nation needs to move forward.

"We should hope that the minister manages to get support from those countries which have capacity to support us," said Zireva.

Zireva noted that OK Zimbabwe will focus on new store development and maintenance of refurbishment push. Full refurbishment of OK Waterfalls and Bindura are targeted for completion in the last quarter of F14 while partial refurbishment of OK Gweru and Mutare is expected to be completed in the same period.

Under regional expansion, he said registration of two operating companies was done and trademarks have been registered.

Meanwhile "application for an investment licence is in progress, sites have been identified and negotiations are at an advanced stage."

- zfn