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Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Indonesia is keen to boost its economic ties with Zimbabwe with the low hanging fruits in the area of agriculture and textile industry set to be given priority.
Indonesia Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Dewa Juniarta Sastrawan yesterday paid a courtesy call on Vice President Kembo Mohadi and discussed various areas of possible cooperation.
Speaking after the meeting, VP Mohadi said Indonesia had expressed willingness to investing in the textile industry and assist in developing small to medium enterprises.
“I met with the Indonesian Ambassador to Zimbabwe who has just been accredited. He had come to pay a courtesy call on me. We covered quite a lot of ground. We covered our relationship, economic relationship and trade between the two countries in terms of our exports and imports,” he said.
“We were talking about increasing the cooperation between the two countries. We also talked about investment opportunities in Zimbabwe that is in agriculture, mining, tourism, manufacturing and many others. They are good in terms of textiles. Indonesia is known for its textiles and they are interested in that.
“We also discussed about the development of small to medium enterprises. Indonesia is one of the countries which started in that area. Their economy grew from SMEs that graduated into big industries. They are interested in developing our SMEs and assisting them to grow.”
VP Mohadi said they had also talked about the possibility of having more people from Indonesia visiting Zimbabwe.
He said Zimbabwe was home to one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Victoria Falls saying it was capital when it comes to the tourism sector.
“We also have Great Zimbabwe Monuments and the uniqueness of those monuments, how they were built and how they exist up to this day.”
Mr Sastrawan said Indonesia would to extend cooperation with Zimbabwe particularly economic cooperation.
“We discussed various potential opportunities that we can cooperate. We talked about how we can start with the low hanging fruits. We discussed how we can cooperate in the area of agriculture. We want to invite our investors in the textile industry so that is one area we can quickly work on,” he said.
“We also spoke about tourism. We identified Victoria Falls as a destination and how we can increase the number of our visitors. We also discussed how we can expand our capacity building like having students from Zimbabwe going to Indonesia. Possible investment in mining and infrastructure development also came up in our discussion. I can see a lot of potential and several areas of co-operation.”
Online Reporter