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Bulawayo Bureau
GOVERNMENT is set to take the Buy Zimbabwe campaign to China with officials from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce expected to visit the Asian country to try and unlock the market, particularly for the beneficiaries of the Presidential Poultry and Goat Schemes.
There is a steady increase in both chicken and goat meat demand in China with figures reaching billions of United States dollars in the last couple of years. It is this potential that the Government wants to tap into in its Buy Zimbabwe products campaign.
The Presidential Poultry Scheme’s ultimate objective is to have the country’s annual chicken production leap to 450 million with an estimated value of US$2,5 billion by 2025 while the goat project seeks to provide 632 000 goats of improved genetics across the country.
Industry and Commerce Minister Dr Sithembiso Nyoni is set to lead a delegation of Government officials to China to sell the brand Zimbabwe to the Chinese market.
In an interview on the sidelines of a life-a-day youth skills training and mini-graduation ceremony organised by the Community Foundation at Galaupole Training Centre in Bulilima district recently, Dr Nyoni said Government has seen the potential of the Chinese market, especially on the agricultural produce from local farmers.
She said selected young rural youths would be taken along so that they get an appreciation of what is required to venture into the export market.
“I will be going to China soon as part of the Buy Zimbabwe campaign. We want to open markets for our indigenous Zimbabwean products particularly goats and chickens since China is a huge consumer of goat meat,” said Dr Nyoni.
In 2021, China imported US$3,11 billion worth of sheep and goat meat, becoming the first largest importer of sheep and goat meat in the world. In the same year, sheep and goat meat was the 104th most imported product in China.
Primarily, the country imports sheep and goat meat from New Zealand (US$2,17 billion), Australia (US$824 million), Uruguay (US$96,6million), Chile (US$14,3 million), and Argentina (US$4,62 million).
The fastest-growing import markets in sheep and goat meat for China between 2020 and 2021 were New Zealand, Australia, and Uruguay.
Buy Zimbabwe is a social enterprise at the forefront of advocating for a more viable, inclusive, sustainable, and internally acceptable industry support system based on incentives for increased value chain-based local production and disincentives for the continued importation of finished products and services.
Buy Zimbabwe’s mandate is to promote, deepen, and broaden the utilisation of locally sourced and produced resources to yield quality and globally competitive local brands for sustainable economic growth.
In 2019, Government approved the Zimbabwe Local Content Strategy, which is a component of the Zimbabwe Industrialisation Development Policy that is aimed at promoting local value addition and linkages through the utilisation of domestic resources.
Local content policies or laws have been major instruments for stimulating industrial growth in resource-rich countries.
Value addition and beneficiation are also among the key deliverables of the country’s five-year development plan, the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS 1), which is a precursor to the country’s broader ambition, Vision 2030, by which time Zimbabwe is expected to be an empowered upper middle-income society.
Online Reporter