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Zvamaida Murwira
Senior Reporter
Zimbabwe’s Ambassador-designate to Belarus, Ignatius Graham Mudzimba, says agriculture will be one of the top priority areas he will seek to deepen cooperation on as he heads to Minsk.
He said he will capitalise on the already existing good and deep bilateral relations between the two countries, which has in recent months seen reciprocal visits of senior Government officials to cement close synergies.
Ambassador Mudzimba said this yesterday at State House while briefing journalists soon after meeting President Mnangagwa, before leaving for Belarus for the commencement of his tour of duty.
“Firstly, I would want to thank His Excellency, President Mnangagwa for the honour he has given me by appointing me the first Resident Zimbabwe Ambassador to the Republic of Belarus.
“He has just briefed me on my mandate. I would like to assure you that I will discharge my mandate to the best of my ability. I am a foot soldier and I work on instructions and I will do exactly that,” said Ambassador Mudzimba.
“As you are aware our cooperation with Belarus is very wide and deep and therefore my going there is to ensure that we strengthen our relation.
“We need to deepen and broaden our ties, there are already many areas of cooperation which are already running right now. You are aware that only last month there was a delegation led by the Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus, (Mr Leonid Zayats) he came here for a fruitful discussion as a follow up to many other visits which were made by delegation from Belarus and that from Zimbabwe to Belarus because there has been this strong collaboration.”
He said the bilateral relations had potential to transform Zimbabwe’s economy.
“As far as I am concerned, Belarus is going to be a game-changer as far as our relations are concerned and our Vision to make Zimbabwe an upper middle class economy will be realised soon rather than later. Agriculture is on top of the list of my priorities.
“There is a programme to mechanise our agriculture. Zimbabwe’s economy rests largely on agriculture so certainly it is on top of the list and of course other areas include technology, among others,” he said.
Before his latest appointment, Ambassador Mudzimba was Zimbabwe’s representative to Cuba and Cooperative Republic of Guyana.
Zimbabwe and Belarus established diplomatic relations in 1992 and the ties between the two countries have been growing since the coming in of the Second Republic.
Online Reporter