adminSTOCK feeds manufacturer Surface Investments is exploring ways of penetrating the European Union where there is huge demand from the well developed dairy industry. The company is a joint venture between Midex Group Private Limited of India which controls 74 percent, and the Industrial Development Corporation of Zimbabwe, which owns 26 percent.
Surface Investments chief executive officer Mr Sylvester Mangani said the company was not on the EU sanctions list.
“We want to supply that market with cottonseed meal as long as it is profitable to us,” he said.
“Already we are talks with the EU to see how we can penetrate that market.”
The oil firm currently exports more than 50 percent of its production to South Africa, Zambia, China and Japan.
It exports Hi protein meal, pelleted cotton hulls, linters and refined oil.
Mangani said since Zimbabwe was a landlocked country, it was also negotiating with countries with sea ports.
“We are currently discussing with those countries which have access to the sea to help us quickly move our products,” he said.
Zimbabwean importers and exporters usually use the Durban port in South Africa, Beira port in Mozambique and the Walvis Bay port in Namibia.
Zimbabwe has ratified the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the EU which enables the country to export duty free to the economic bloc.
Surface Investments is one of the fruits of the Look East Policy which the Zimbabwean Government adopted at the turn of the millennium to blunt the effects of economic sanctions that Western countries imposed as punishment for implementing agrarian reforms. – New Ziana
Online Reporter