Let’s create trade avenues, says Ethiopian envoy

Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Zimbabwe and Ethiopia can benefit from each other if the two countries cooperate on areas of mutual interest such as agriculture and the textile industry, Ethiopian Ambassador Mr Mustafe Dek Abdisalam, has said.

Speaking after paying a courtesy call on Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Ambassador Abdisalam said the two countries can control the textile and leather global markets if they work together.

“We have a historical relationship with Zimbabwe, which was developed over a long period of time. We want to translate that relationship into a trade one. So, our deliberations (with VP Mnangagwa) and discussions were mainly on finding ways of translating this good relationship to create trade opportunities and share experiences between the two countries.

“There are areas we have a common interest, like textile, agriculture and leather. Zimbabwe and Ethiopia have a competitive advantage compared to other countries, and if we can integrate our efforts, we can even control the global market in textile and leather,” he said.

He said his country was ready to share its experience in infrastructure development after going through a tremendous change of infrastructure like building highways, schools, universities, public housing in the last 10 years, saying there was no way Zimbabwe can fail to emulate them.

“We are keen and ready to support Zimbabwe in that regard and share our experience on how we could transform our economy with that,” he said.

There are many commodities and products for bilateral trade between Harare and Addis Ababa, but despite the huge potential, there have been limited commercial and business connections over the years.

Zimbabwe launched the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset) in 2013 to drive its economic turnaround, while Ethiopia came up with the First Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP 1) in 2014.

To demonstrate the strong bond between the two countries, Ethiopian flagship carrier, Ethiopian Airlines did not pull out from operating its flights to Harare during Zimbabwe’s hyper inflationary period.