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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
Spanish Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mrs Natividad Isabel Pena-Bonilla has praised President Mnangagwa’s engagement and re-engagement policy saying it will guide relations between the two countries.
Ambassador Pena-Bonilla said this after presenting her credentials to the President at State House yesterday.
Two other ambassadors, Mr Simon Nyakoro Sirro of Tanzania and Finland’s Saana Halinen also presented their credentials yesterday.
“I think this is going to be a new era in our bilateral relations. Spain has always been close to Zimbabwe for the past decades and we are convinced that where our interests are common, there is time to engage and re-engage as the President says, and the more we work together the further we will get and the better for all.
“We have very common interests in gender equality and women’s empowerment and both sides are fond of smart agriculture and we also want to fight against climate change,” she said.
Historically, the two countries share cordial relations although they had cooled in recent times due to the EU’s sanctions policy on Zimbabwe.
Ambassador Sirro said his work was to ensure the relations between the two countries remained strong while expanding them to the areas of business.
“My responsibility here is first, to strengthen the relationship between Tanzania and Zimbabwe. If you recall the history of Tanzania and Zimbabwe, especially when there was the struggle for Zimbabwe to get its freedom, Tanzania played a big role so that their brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe could get their freedom, so one of my responsibilities is to make sure the relationship is maintained.
“My second responsibility is to encourage cooperation between Tanzania in the area of economics, cooperation in the area of politics, we are here to make sure that we get investors here from Zimbabwe who would like to invest in Tanzania and also to talk to some of the investors in Tanzania to come and invest here.
“We also want to encourage business, to encourage trade and to make sure that the people of the two countries enjoy the benefits of their freedom and without having development they cannot enjoy their freedom therefore with my presents I expect that development will to a greater extent be achieved,” he said.
Ambassador Halinen thanked Zimbabweans for the warm reception she was accorded and promised to Finland’s desire to work with Zimbabwe in various fields.
“Finland and Zimbabwe enjoy good relations that go way back, decades. We have worked together on education, forestry, we currently have Finnish NGOs working in Zimbabwe working on issues like climate change and adaptation, food security and entrepreneurial skills and HIV and Aids so there is a lot of things that we can cover together.
“The President also raised the issue of science and technology that Zimbabwe will be interested in collaborating with Finland in these areas, so we will be definitely looking into those and also climate change issues and renewable energy,” she said.
Online Reporter