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An Analysis of the Potential Contribution of the Productive Sector to Economic Growth (GDP) and Socio-Economic Welfare: A Case Study of Zimbabwe (1985-2012)

The research focused on determining the potential economic production capacity and how this can translate into addressing adverse socio-economic issues like unemployment, access to better health care, nutrition, clean water and sanitation, spread of HIV/AIDS and other social amenities. The target population was the key industries contributing 77.4% of the country’s GDP namely; Agriculture, Mining, Manufacturing, Transport and communications, Distribution and Tourism, Education, Health, Electricity and water. Multiple regression analysis was used to come up with a model that best explains the time series data. The model results indicate that these industries are operating at an overall average level of 45.5% capacity, meaning that, at full potential, the country can operate at approximately US19.9 billion dollars GDP per year. This level of GDP is expected to more than double public expenditure on capital and social welfare projects. It will also increase the households’ disposable incomes which will induce demand for key services like health care, education and others. We also expect investment expenditure to increase leading to job creation and improved domestic production which means less dependence on imports and hence more savings at home. However, full operating capacity can only be attained if a consistent policy framework is put in place to attract the necessary investment in small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and labour intensive manufacturing to create more jobs. This is expected to smooth out income distribution within the economy. Investment in infrastructure and tertiary education is critical since this is where innovation comes from. In developing countries, it is increasingly emerging that International business is keen to invest in the extractive industry where the risk is significantly reduced by the short payback period. The economics of this is largely due to corporate governance issues, political instability, inconsistency macroeconomic policies and corruption. This is therefore an area that needs to be addressed to ensure investor confidence