eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
Chemplex Animal and Public Health, a division of Chemplex Corporation, is looking at expanding its reach into the Zambian market and took advantage of the recently held Zambia Agriculture and Commercial Show to interact with potential customers and partners.
Chemplex Animal and Public Health (Chemplex) manufactures cattle dips such as the Deltatick and Tickbuster range that include spray-ons, pour-ons, and total immersion regimen; grain protectants; malaria vector; household pesticides and detergents among other products.
General manager Dr Spencer Ruziwa told Business Weekly, on the sidelines of the Zambia Agriculture and Commercial
Show (ZACS) recently that his company is looking at establishing a Zambian partner so that it can distribute its products more formally.
Currently, Chemplex does not export into Zambia although its products are being exported informally and sold into that market by other players.
“Our products have been coming informally, but we are looking at establishing a local partner so that we can distribute our products more formally,” said Dr Ruziwa.
He said exhibiting at ZACS was an exciting period with the company getting a lot of enquiries from institutions and individuals that are willing to distribute the products.
The Zambian agriculture sector contributes about 19 percent to GDP and employs three quarters of the population.
The country’s government is promoting agriculture as a way to diversify the economy away from an over-reliance on copper through the development of farm blocks in all 10 provinces for large and medium commercial farming, fish farming, and livestock production.
Private equity and other investors are active in this sector.
Dr Ruziwa said Chemplex is competitive in the Zimbabwean market because of the wide range of products it can offer.
He said this will be extended into the Zambian market because “we will be offering them for US dollars and as such we will be much cheaper than anywhere else in the region”.
Dr Ruziwa said going into the Zambia market would give Chemplex “extra volumes in terms of capacity utilisation, which will then even enhance further our competitiveness as it is then able to bring the unit cost down”.
“That benefit will also translate onto the local market where we will be able to offer more competitive prices.”
He said this would also help the company earn the much needed foreign currency.
“The major cost driver to our products is the imported raw materials, so if we are able to earn our own foreign currency, then we can decide how to price it ourselves as opposed to the price being determined by the interbank rate.
“So we may be able to discount our products because we would have earned this foreign currency ourselves. It’s important for our business from competitive point of view, in terms of having higher capacity utilisation and resulting in more affordable prices even for the local market,” said Dr Ruziwa.
Cattle dipping challenges
Commenting on the availability of dip and spray products in Zimbabwe, Dr Ruziwa said the challenge was on the part of Government, which does not have financial resources to procure chemicals needed for 80 percent of the livestock in the country of approximately 5 million.
According to Government statistics, about 50 000 cattle across the country died due to Theileriosis in the 2017-2018 rainy season. The disease is spread by the
brown tick and caused by non-dipping of livestock.
“The challenges we have been facing are two-fold, access to foreign currency, to import the active ingredients as well as the ability by the Government to fund the procurement from ourselves.
“So when that cycle is broken and they are not able to pay us in time for what we have supplied and then maybe we are not able to also secure the foreign currency and that presents a challenge.”
He said this is why there has been some issues with cattle not dipping because the Government was not able to pay for the procurement of dipping chemicals and that also affected us in terms of being able to procure the raw materials as far as foreign currency is concerned.
