The Look East Policy a failed policy

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The Zimbabwean government once drafted the Look East Policy. This policy has been argued by many as the base of the Zimbabwe-China relationship . Today this policy is not being talked about either in the press or in the political arena . The policy is now like a dormant policy. How favorable has this policy been to the Zimbabwean economy is a question to ask. 

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As usual ,there has been some contrasting views of the policy between the public media and the privately owned media. The privately owned media opposed the policy and stated that it was a failure.The Zimbabwe Independent newspaper a privately owned newspaper had an article which read "Look East policy a failed political posture". This article stated that the policy could not solve the problem of the sinking Zimbabwean economy.

View article here http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2014/05/02/look-east-policy-failed-political-posture/ 

The Herald Newspaper a public newspaper supported the policy. It once praised the Look East policy in its article How Mugabe's Look East Policy influenced the World 

View article herehttp://www.herald.co.zw/how-mugabes-look-east-policy-influenced-the-world/ 

It is true the Look East policy was there to counter the illegal economic sanctions imposed by the Western governments but the policy could not bring food on the table . The economy of Zimbabwe continued to suffer even after the implementation of the policy. The economy of the country sank in the even though the Look East Policy was implemented in the early 2000s. 

A campaign not a policy

Here is what the African Economic Outlook say about the Zimbabwean economy

"Zimbabwe's economy remains in a fragile state, with an unsustainably high external debt and massive deindustrialisation and informalisation. The average GDP growth rate of 7.5% during the economic rebound of 2009-12 is moderating. This economic slowdown is due to liquidity challenges (e.g. the lack of and high cost of capital and revenue underperformance), outdated technologies, structural bottlenecks that include power shortages and infrastructure deficits, corruption and a volatile and fragile global financial environment"

  http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/countries/southern-africa/zimbabwe/

PEOPLE AT THE ZANU-PF STAR RALLY IN MUTARE 

Since the introduction of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimASSET) what improvement has the country seen ? Is this blue print a failure or a success to the Zimbabwean economy?  These are the questions Zimbabweans have to ask before criticizing the economic blue print.

The zimasset economic blue print came as a campaign structure . Its use was to lure people to vote for the ruling party ZANU-PF . It is therefore problematic to initiate this policy as many many companies are closing down and corruption still at its highest peak.

The ZimASSET is an economic blue print that has been designed and unveiled by the government To view what the blue print says here is a link to it

http://www.zimtreasury.gov.zw/zim-asset

Table 1: Macroeconomic indicators

	2012	2013(e)	2014(p)	2015(p)
Real GDP growth	4.4	3.7	4	3.7
Real GDP per capita growth	1.7	0.6	0.9	0.7
CPI inflation	3.7	4.1	4	3.6
Budget balance % GDP	-1.3	-1.9	-1.9	-2.2
Current account balance % GDP	-20.1	-18.5	-16.9	-14.4

Source: Data from domestic authorities; estimates (e) and projections (p) based on authors’ calculations.

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This is the data that has been given by the   African Economic Outlook . The data does not show any improvement since the year 2012 . This comes back to the question above " Is this blue print a failure or a success to the Zimbabwean economy?