Mujuru’s Indian tour an eye-opener

8th India-Africa Conclave in the Indian capital city New Delhi, where Zimbabwe was the focus country.
Despite the fact that Zimbabwe was the focus country, there was a lot of interest in the country among the Indian business community and the fact that Zimbabwe was being represented at the highest level further fuelled that interest.
The amount of interest in Zimbabwe was clearly evident in the number of business executives who queued to call on Vice President Mujuru.
Key among the investors were the Kirloskar brothers and representatives of state-owned engineering conglomerates like BEML and HMT Ltd.
A special session on Zimbabwe that was held on the sidelines of the main conference also drew a full house with Indian businesspeople expressing interest in investing in agriculture, infrastructure development, manufacturing and engineering.
The conclave, which is a forum to encourage dialogue between African states and India, was opened by the Indian Minister of Commerce, Trade and Textile Anand Sharma said there was a new economic world order taking place.
He said this has seen previously disadvantaged countries emerging as economic giants that are now upstaging traditional economic giants.
In this respect he said there was need for Africa and India to stand together and share ideas on how to grow their respective economies.
In her speech soon after VP Mujuru concurred with Minister Sharma calling on African states to broaden their focus from traditional economic giants in the West by also looking to emerging economic giants in the east. She said Zimbabwe was following the  Look East policy enunciated by President Mugabe.
The two speeches set the tone for the whole conclave, as these were the talking points throughout the discussions.
One of the key issues that arose from the conclave was that India has set aside US$5 billion to fund Indian company investments into Africa.
Minister Sharma cautioned African states to come up with bankable projects, which they wish to present for funding in conjunction with Indian companies.
In respect of Zimbabwe, Minister Sharma told Vice President Mujuru that the country needed to up the tempo in its hunt for investment.
He said that Zimbabwe was still being casual in its approach to attracting investment considering that it is a developing nation.
In this respect, he said Zimbabwe needed to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the conclave to partner Indian companies that manufacture products that the country requires facilitating economic growth in order to access the fund.
During and after the conclave Vice President Mujuru also had an opportunity to meet Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Vice President Dr Mohammad Hamid Ansari. The leaders concurred on the need to leverage on the shared colonial history of the two countries by scaling up co-operation in political, social and economic spheres.
The Indian prime minister said that as a former British colony they have managed to turn around their economy to become one of the emerging economic giants in the world and Zimbabwe can learn from such an experience through deepening its ties with India.
After the conclave Vice President Mujuru and her delegation travelled to Bangalore, where she also called on Bengaluru, the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka, approximately 2 061km west of New Delhi.
Bangalore, which is well known as a hub for India’s information technology sector, is the third most populous city and fifth-most populous urban agglomeration.
In Bangalore, the VP Mujuru had an opportunity to visit state-owned enterprises like BEML and HMT.
BEML Limited is a leading heavy engineering manufacturing company that is into manufacturing heavy- duty mining and construction equipment, rail and metro rolling stock such as metro car, wagons, coaches and rail laying equipment and a diversity of defence equipment.
HMT International is also an international engineering conglomerate that specialises in manufacturing engineering equipment for small- and large-scale enterprises, tractors, bearings and watches.
A key lesson leant during the tour of the two state enterprises was that given the right climate state enterprises can become profit-making conglomerates that can contribute positively to the economy.
According to Mr Mervyn Chiwayu, the commercial counsellor at the Zimbabwe Embassy in India, such as a situation can only occur in Zimbabwe if governance issues in state enterprises are addressed.
From Bangalore VP Mujuru and her delegation travelled 850km north to the industrial hub of Pune, where she had a chance to visit the John Deere tractor manufacturing plant and the Kirloskar Brothers Limited’s water pump manufacturing plant at Kirloskarvadi, a rural area in Sangli District, 200km south of Pune.
The visit to Kirloskarvadi was part of efforts to find a solution for water pumping challenges being faced by local authorities and farmers.
Kirloskar Brothers Limited manufactures a wide range of water pumps with pumping capacities of between 12 000 and 30 000 litres per second.
The plant has 1 800 employees and produces 20 000 small pumps per month and 3 000 large plants per month.
At John Deere VP Mujuru and her delegation were told that the company was keen on assisting small-scale farmers under a scheme that it recently introduced where it was offering small tractors that are affordable that come with cheap accessories such as sprayers, planters and harrows.
The company said it has already implemented the scheme in Zambia in collaboration with that country’s government with a considerable measure of success.
While appreciating the company presentation and manufacturing processes, some members of the Zimbabwe delegation raised concern on the cost of John Deere tractors that are being sold in Zimbabwe, which is way above what they were being sold for on the Indian market.
Mr Miller Musanhi, who is a director of Sabata Holdings which is a John Deere agent in Zimbabwe, said that they were worried about the cost build-up for tractors and spares destined for Zimbabwe channelled through the John Deere office in Kenya.
“We have the capacity and the market to stand on our own. We do not need to go through Kenya, our products will be much cheaper if they come straight to Harare,” he said.
The two visits marked the end of the Vice President’s tour of India after which she headed for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where she attended the 2012 International Conference on African Women Development that was organised by a Nigerian-based NGO Centre for Economic and Leadership Development.
At the conference VP Mujuru, who was the guest speaker, called on women to believe in themselves in order to be economically empowered.
She called for unity among women and an end to the habit of pulling each other down.
VP Mujuru was accompanied Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Minister Sithembiso Nyoni, Zimbabwean Ambassador to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates Mr Mark Grey Marongwe and her permanent secretary, Mr Ushewunesu Munodawafa.
On Saturday March 31 VP Mujuru received the Distinguished African Amazon Award for her achievements in politics and women empowerment at a glittering ceremony held at the seven-star Burj Al Arab Hotel in Jameira.
The International Award, which the brainchild of the Centre for Economic and Leadership Development, is in recognition of women who have excelled in their professional life and made a difference in the life of other women.
In receiving the award, Vice President Mujuru joined other distinguished recipients of the award such as Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Nigerian First Lady Mrs Patience Jonathan.
In selecting Vice President Mujuru as the recipient of the award the Centre for Economic and Leadership noted that at indpendence in 1980 she was the youngest Cabinet minister in Zimbabwe at the age of 25 years. She was also the first female Minister of Defence in Zimbabwe, before becoming the first woman Vice President in Zimbabwe and Africa.
She was also praised for initiating several women’s agricultural projects in Zimbabwe in sugar cane production and piggery production.