Chronicle Editor
Prosper Ndlovu in Dubai, UAE
THE growth in bilateral trade volumes and desire for increased business synergies between Zimbabwe and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is evidence that the global community is responding positively to the economic diplomacy drive being pursued by the Second Republic led by President Mnangagwa.
Zimbabwean Ambassador to the UAE, Lovemore Mazemo, told Chronicle yesterday that he was excited by the momentum being put by the country towards diversifying its economy and seeking to expand its footprint in the Middle East region.
He said the two countries’ establishment of embassies in Harare and Dubai had deepened bilateral relations within a short space of time, which has seen the two countries forge strategic development partnerships.
The UAE opened its embassy in Harare in 2019 and Zimbabwe followed suit by opening its embassy in 2021.
“Since then, all we have been doing is business and nothing else. The economic diplomacy thrust is the only meaningful thrust in this market and it’s working. We are here for entrepreneurship and for business and that is our goal,” said Ambassador Mazemo.
“We have already pointed out that in terms of trade between our two countries, the UAE has become our second trading partner after our neighbours, South Africa. As of 2020, the trade figures were up to US$1,4 billion.
About 80 percent of that trade consists of gold and diamonds, 10 percent is tobacco and other products share 10 percent. Yes, the Covid-19 pandemic might have crippled trade, but I am sure we can bounce back.”
The country’s participation at the on-going World Expo 2020 Dubai, has added more impetus in marketing locally-produced goods and services to the whole world, said Ambassador Mazemo.
Zimbabwe is already supplying high value agriculture products to Dubai such as macadamia nuts, avocadoes, various berries, citrus fruits, bananas and so forth. The UAE, which is a net importer of food, has also expressed a desire to partner Zimbabwe in the agriculture value chain.
“Expo 2020 Dubai has offered us a great opportunity. It’s like a great launching pad for us to market ourselves in this market,” said Ambassador Mazemo.
“We have a huge potential to bring our fresh produce into this market and so it’s critical that we cultivate our agri-business sector, particularly our horticulture sector. We already have some of our products coming and a lot of them are appearing on the shelves and I must say because of their taste and quality, they are appearing in the upmarket shops, which is a plus for us.”
Given such positive sentiment, Zimbabwe is now seized with tackling key challenges, which also present significant opportunities.
“First of all, we are still small in our supply side and we need to grow and we are going to grow. At this stage in the short term, it’s important for our producers to aggregate their produce and supply so that they can come into this market in a big way,” he said.
“But going forward, we are also looking at possibilities of getting investors from this market, who can come and either do contract farming and some would want to come to Zimbabwe and do farming with us so that we increase our volumes.”
In order to unlock this potential, Cabinet has approved the establishment of a US$20 million horticulture revolving fund, which Finance and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube, said will be availed from the country’s IMF Special Drawing Rights. Prof Ncube has also visited the UAE quite a few times and engaged with stakeholders over this business window.
“The third challenge is shipment or transportation and logistics of bringing our goods into the market. At the moment we have the Emirates airline, which does our cargo movement.
We also have the port in Maputo, Beira and Durban, but, of course, for fresh produce we want our goods to be in the market as early as possible so that they land on time with a long shelf life,” said Ambassador Mazemo.
He stressed the need to enhance cost efficiencies to ensure adequate and reasonable price competitiveness of local goods in the export market.
With the Expo 2020 Dubai coming to an end this month, Ambassador Mazemo said the embassy would continue to work hard to push to fruition several deals and expressions of interest secured during the exhibition.
“For us there will be a lot of homework and there is life after Expo 2020 and we are looking at this relationship in the long term,” he said.
“We have quite a few pots on the fire, but at this stage though, for those that are not ripe, we encourage stakeholders to sign some memorandums of understanding, which are non-binding, but are an expression of commitment that we are engaging one another. We will get to a time where we will projectise our activity and monetise them and that is coming.”
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