Astro Mobile may retrench due to RBZ's “prohibitive” import priority list

Astro Mobile, a homegrown mobile phone company fears that it may be forced to retrench workers  and scale down operations .  The company is facing problems in making foreign currency payments for stock.  Sometimes it takes as many as four months for payments to go through.  The company was placed on the third tier of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s “prohibitive” import priority list.

Astro Mobile founder Munyaradzi Gwatidzo said:

That’s a real problem to be honest. It has really affected us. Right now we don’t have stock for the last two weeks. It takes four months for payment to go through. That’s how bad it is.

It’s only because we have regional operations that we are managing to survive.

It’s something that might even see us scaling down our operations in Zimbabwe to focus on other countries. That’s how bad it is.

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