President E.D Mnangagwa says the covid19 pandemic has opened up the capacity of the local industry leaving only the importation of high level PPEs. The pandemic which took the world Speaking during the Political Actors Dialogue meeting, Cde Mnangagwa said innovations have been realised during this trying period. "Besides causing challenges to our development, Covid-19 has also provided opportunities for growth towards self-reliance particularly in the health sector," President Mnangagwa said. "As stated in my last address to you, our universities and tertiary institutions have led in this regard with most PPEs now being manufactured locally. "Our local industry has also been quite forthcoming leaving us to only import only the high level of PPEs for use in highly infectious environments." President Mnangagwa noted that the ICT industry has not been left behind in seizing the development opportunities. "The restrictions imposed by the requirement for social distancing have given rise to inventions in the technology sector. Our own Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services launched the Glue Virtual platform, Africa's first virtual communications and collaboration Platform that was conceived and developed by Zimbabweans in South Africa and Zimbabwe," he said. "The platform is expected to reduce the continent's dependence on platforms developed elsewhere. Various locally-developed software are also at various stages of development and testing in Government." Countries such as the People's Republic of China PRC have developed software and applications such as weibo and wechat that have helped keep their communities safe from western manipulation.