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Interview Farirai Machivenyika
Russian Ambassador, Nikolai Vladimirovich Krasilnikov
Russia and Zimbabwe have close, cordial and deep-rooted bilateral relations. During my tour of duty, I will do my best to promote further the cooperation between our two nations in various fields.
At the moment, we are concentrating on mining, agriculture and military cooperation and I am sure in the course of my tour of duty and together with our partners in the Government of Zimbabwe and business community, we will identify and promote projects in other fields for the mutual benefit of our nations. I highlighted that the Russia-Africa Summit held in Sochi was a great success.
The Republic of Zimbabwe made a significant contribution to the success of this remarkable event with the active participation of His Excellency, the President and the instructive and active involvement of the ministers and the business leaders from Zimbabwe.
Angolan Ambassador Agostinho Tavares da Silva Neto
Zimbabwe is a brother country, so the bilateral relationship between Angola and Zimbabwe is in excellent shape. So I talked with His Excellency about the relationship between our two countries, the potential we have, so we must work together to explore the opportunities. There is a lot of opportunities in areas like agriculture, tourism and industry, so we talked about re-activating our Joint Commission.
The only Joint Commission we had was in 1992, so we need to reactivate it and maybe in the future, create the Angola-Zimbabwe Chamber of Commerce to facilitate trade and investment because we have great potential. We must work together.
Sweden’s Ambassador Ms Asa Pehrson
The focus of the discussion with the President was the long-term relationship between the two countries, we have an open friendship. Sweden is one of the largest bilateral donors to Zimbabwe and I think that is a clear sign of our commitment, and to also assist in reforms and to deepen democracy. I will focus my work on continuing with the work of my predecessor, of promoting my Government’s feminist foreign policy.
We will follow up on all areas of cooperation with the Republic of Zimbabwe, whether it’s political, economic or cultural, and we hope circumstances will be there to allow those aspects of our relations.
Finland Ambassador Ms Pirjo Chowdhoury
I had an excellent discussion with the President and we were talking about our relations, the history of them and the good relations we have had so far and the mutual wish to further develop those relations, particularly given the opportunities of increasing business relations in the future because that’s where I believe real development is based on. So it’s important to grow business relations, and I also mentioned the reforms and how important it is for Zimbabwe to implement political and economic reforms.
Sri Lanka’s Ambassador Anuruddha Mih
I am happy to be here representing Sri Lanka, and I am looking forward to see what we can do in the area of gems, in diamonds there is potential and also in gold. Sri Lanka uses a lot of gold, so there is potential to export gold to Sri Lanka, so those are some of the things we discussed with His Excellency.
Norway’s Ambassador Ms Astride Helle
Our two nations have a long history of friendship, first the support we gave to the freedom fighters of Zimbabwe, and after that for many years to invest in the development of Zimbabwe and to work together for the liberty and the fight for democracy in South Africa. So, we find that we have a good basis with Zimbabwe and we also commend Zimbabwe for the role they are playing in the region and for taking up responsibility within Sadc and on a global level. We believe it’s now important to work together more and not less. There are very few things that we can solve alone, but a lot more if we can work together.
Burkina Faso’s Ambassador Oumarou Maiga
We discussed the friendly cooperation between our two countries and the need to improve that in the area of trade, agriculture and mining.
UN Resident Coordinator Ms Maria Ribeiro
As you know, the UN has been working in Zimbabwe for a long time and has an important and strong partnership with the people of Zimbabwe and the different authorities and has been engaged in humanitarian work and has been engaged with various institutions to build greater resilience and address the challenges a country like Zimbabwe is facing.
We are here to work with Zimbabwe on their path to realise the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda.
Venezuela’s Ambassador Omar Paredes
It’s an honour to be appointed as a representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and am bringing a message from the only President of Venezuela, President (Nicolas) Maduro, a message of solidarity because our countries are at the centre of aggressions with the illegal sanctions, so I am bringing this message to President Mnangagwa.
Also, we are proposing to Zimbabwe to cooperate in different areas because it’s time we deepen our bilateral ties.
United Arab Emirates Ambassador Jassim Al Qasemi
We have to cooperate in areas of mining, tourism and we have to work together from now to deepen our relationship and we are looking forward now for His Excellency’s visit to UAE (in November) and we welcome his second visit.”
Online Reporter