Online Reporter
Nqobile Bhebhe in Beijing, China
THE Second Republic is tirelessly working to create a conducive environment for investment, as the country marches towards its Vision 2030 of becoming an upper-middle-income society, a Cabinet Minister has said.
Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Dr Zhemu Soda said in this regard, it is the collective responsibility of all Zimbabweans, home and abroad to contribute to the country’s economic growth.
He was addressing Zimbabwean academics, Zanu-PF diaspora leadership and students pursuing studies across various universities in Beijing, China at Zimbabwe House last Wednesday.
The interactive engagement also attended by Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to China, Abigail Shoniwa was held in the ambassadorial boardroom, provided a rare platform for direct dialogue between senior Government officials and the student community, which numbers several hundred across the Asian nation.
Dr Soda is on a working visit to China to strengthen media and information co-operation between Harare and Beijing.
In his address, he gave an update on successes achieved under National Development Strategy 1 (NDS-1) and the aspirations of NDS-2.
He systematically spelled out gains across the entire economy made under the Second Republic.
“We have a vision back home that as we get to the year 2030, our aspiration is that of becoming an upper-middle-income society,” said Dr Soda.
“This is a collective responsibility. Whether you are home or you are away, we are all responsible.”
The Minister spelt out numerous successes of the NDS-1, which ran from 2021 to 2025, noting that the economy outperformed its initial targets despite global and local shocks.
“During NDS-1, as a result of the terminal evaluation carried out by the Minister of Finance last year in 2025 to provide us with a footing for the new strategy, which has just started in 2026, which will take us to the next stage of the year 2030,” he explained.
“In terms of the performance of our economy, it’s something that I think we are all interested to know how our economy is performing.
“During the first five years, we had targeted to achieve a growth of our economy of around five percent. But by the time we closed the NDS1, we had achieved 6,6 percentage points in terms of our growth,” he said.
“And the revision, which was done by the IMF, suggested that we surpassed that growth target of around 7,2 percent of our growth.”
Dr Soda attributed much of the economic stability to the introduction of the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) currency, which was adopted on April 7, 2024 and is fully backed by the country’s mineral resources.
“The currency has been very stable and I think you are all aware of how our currency has been performing, which is backed by our own resources mainly constituted by our gold,” he said.
“(Early last week) when the vaults were opened, we had surpassed about 4,5 tons of gold that is now in our vaults and that has been the source of the stability of our currency.”
He further noted that inflation, which was a major challenge at the start of NDS-1, has now been tamed.
The Minister showcased several flagship infrastructure projects that are nearing completion, demonstrating Government’s commitment to modernising the country.
“At home, in terms of our roads infrastructure, the Harare-Beitbridge Road is now almost complete, around 95 percent, except for a few portions of the road that needs to be completed.
“I am mentioning all this in order for us to understand that while we are here, jointly and collectively, like I say, there is something that is also happening at home.”
He also cited the new Parliament building in Mount Hampden as a testament to the Second Republic’s developmental agenda.
On food security, Dr Soda said the country’s water harvesting strategy was progressing well, with several major dams under construction.
“We also have some dams that are being constructed and the importance of these dams is to ensure that as a country we are able to produce our food for ourselves — not only when we have adequate rainfall but even in times when we have not had good rains we would still be able to have our food.
“So, the water harvesting strategy is progressing very well.
“The Kunzvi Dam is almost complete together with the Gwayi-Shangani Dam.”
The Minister confirmed significant improvements in power generation, with the completion of Units 7 and 8 at Hwange Power Station adding 600 megawatts to the national grid.
“We still require many more and much to be done in the area of energy supply as one of the enablers for our economic activities, be it in agriculture, in the mining sector, even value addition that we would want to undertake.
“As we gravitate towards the year 2030, we still require a lot of investments in the area of energy but as we speak, I think we have now gone beyond four months without a lot of load shedding in the country, except for a few areas, which are reporting localised outages as a result of our distribution network.
“But in terms of the actual supply, we have now surpassed more than four months without any load shedding.”
Dr Soda also touched on the shift towards heritage-based education, which prioritises innovation and job creation.
“In education, I think we are also aware of our heritage education in which the focus is on innovation and industrialisation.
“And for those that are here for the purposes of advancing their education, at the end of the day, what we expect is that people who are educated must be creative, they must be innovative enough to create jobs for the nation and not to become job seekers.”
Turning to the new National Development Strategy (NDS-2), which began in 2026, Dr Soda said the first key area is financial deepening and economic stability.
“We want to take advantage of the achievements that we had during NDS 1 and continue, and maybe to ensure that other areas that remained unattended to during NDS 1 will now be focused on.
“One of the areas that a lot of people have been talking about and complaining about is the area where deposits are made, if you make a deposit into a bank, you are not earning some interest but instead there is some value, which is lost.
“And it’s an area that we are particular about as Government to ensure that people are attracted to bank their money.
“It is through deposits that money should be available even for lenders and that stimulates economic activities.”
He emphasised that economic growth must continue despite external shocks.
“We had droughts during NDS 1, we also had the effects of the cyclones. Some lives were lost.
“We also had the Covid-19 during the NDS 1, but all that did not distract our focus during NDS 1. And we want to leverage on the achievements of NDS-1 so that during NDS-2 much more should continue to be realised.”
Dr Soda urged the diaspora community to take advantage of the vast improving investment climate and contribute to the nation’s transformation agenda, reminding them that Zimbabwe is open for business.
Dr Soda is leading a delegation of more than 20 Zimbabwe media practitioners attending the Seminar.
Participants are drawn from public, private media houses and other key stakeholders.
The seminar, which runs from 7-20 May is designed to help Zimbabwean media practitioners gain a deeper insight into China, foster a fuller understanding of China’s development landscape and Chinese modernisation.
The engagement is organised by The Academy for International Business Officials (AIBO), an educational and training institution directly under the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China.
