Zimbabwe: economic recovery, new realities and new paradigms

The intent of this article is to explore the economic side of the country's decline with the view to put forward new areas of economic significance By Laurence Sithole Modern and contemporary Zimbabwe as we know it - was built on the back of agriculture, mining and other related primary extractive industries so much so that at independence in 1980 the country had one of the most advanced industrial economies in Africa second only to South Africa. The economic growth and progress brought on by these primary sectors with time naturally cascaded to the rest of the economy resulting in the emergence of various industries. The industrial capability of the country according to Herbst and Mills (2010) in the 1960s was such that Zimbabwe exported electronics to the United States. At the time of independence, the Zimbabwe Dollar was then stronger than the US Dollar (from 1978 to 1980 one United States Dollar would have bought you ZW 68c) and ranked at par with the Pound Sterling. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); This was a very strong position no doubt to be in as a country at the most critical and defining juncture of the nation's history and instead