adminLloyd Gumbo Senior Reporter
India wants operationalisation of lines of credit agreements and projects it signed with Zimbabwe expedited as the two countries enhance their bilateral relations.
The incoming ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Masakui Rungsung made the remarks after paying a courtesy call on Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa at his Munhumutapa offices yesterday.
Outgoing Germany ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Ulrich Klockner, also bade farewell to VP Mnangagwa after completing his three-year tenure in Harare.
Speaking to the media after a closed door meeting with VP Mnangagwa, Ambassador Rungsung said bilateral relations between Zimbabwe and India would continue to soar since they shared common interests.
“We discussed a range of issues in the bilateral relationship between India and Zimbabwe,” he said.
“The issues covered are manifold, which include partnership in the field of agriculture, manufacturing, SMEs sector and the health sector. Also the Vice President spoke about military and security sector cooperation. These are broadly the cooperation that we would want to take up during my tenure in Zimbabwe.
“We are working on those agreements, credit lines and the projects that we have agreed upon. We are taking up that and we are working on it with the Foreign Affairs (ministry). I hope we can expedite it for implementation.”
Zimbabwe and India have enjoyed bilateral cooperation over the years, with the latest agreement involving an $87 million loan agreement with the Export and Import Bank of India aimed at the upgrading of and rehabilitation of the Bulawayo Thermal Power Station.
The agreement was signed during President Mugabe’s visit to India during the India-Africa Forum Summit late last year.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Klockner said he was delighted that relations between Harare and Berlin were normalising though there was still room to further strengthen the ties.
He said they talked about the re-engagement exercise that is going on between Zimbabwe and European countries.
“I think we were able to cooperate on a couple of areas such as wildlife because it’s a very important agreement between Frankfurt Zoological Society and National Parks,” said Ambassador Klockner.
“Wildlife is one of the areas where tourism could be improved. This was one of the things that the Vice President mentioned that we should help bring Zimbabwe back where it should be.
“I think this was a time of the re-engagement. When I look back at the last three years, there has been dialogue established and we are in the process of negotiating the debt clearance for Zimbabwe which was not on the agenda three years ago. There are areas of cooperation. But there is also room for more improvement definitely.”
Ambassador Klockner denied that foreign diplomats had a hand in recent protests in the country following concerns by Government that French and US diplomats were behind the protests.
“The French ambassador has already stated that all these allegations are totally unjustified. I don’t think that diplomats can incite anything here. There is a difficult economic situation in the country and in all the countries of the world, people react to this,” he said.
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