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Mukudzei Chingwere in New Delhi, India
India is next week hosting this year’s edition of the Africa Conclave on India-Africa Partnership organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) with Zimbabwe to clinch business deals
Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga is scheduled to lead Zimbabwe’s participation at the 19th edition of the Conclave after previously leading the country’s delegation at last year’s event.
The 19th edition of the conclave aims to serve as an instrument for Africa’s growth and the role of India-Africa partnership in regional and global value chain integration and is pencilled to run from Tuesday up to Thursday next week.
India is among the top five investors in Africa having invested over US$73 billion between 1996 and 2021, its trade with African countries has also reached US$98 billion between 2022 to 2023 with the Conclave emerging as a significant platform for India’s economic engagement with African countries.
India has extended concessional loans of over US$12.37 billion to Africa and has completed about 197 projects, and there is potential for further partnerships in areas such as digital transformation, green technologies, health, food, and water security.
Speaking to journalists here ahead of next week’s conclave Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to India, Ms Stella Nkomo, said Zimbabwe is seeking synergies and partnerships that will help grow the country’s exports and investments.
Amb Nkomo said currently Zimbabwe is exporting goods worth about US$37 million to India, against an import bill of over US$258 million from India, with the main exports being in the mining and agricultural sectors.
“The beauty is that India and Zimbabwe have excellent bilateral relations that extend to the business side, and we will have to continue negotiating for favourable trade conditions for both parties,” said Amb Nkomo.
“Currently if you look at the trade volumes they are skewed towards India, I think where we are exporting about US$37 million to India, on the reverse India is exporting over US$258 million to Zimbabwe.
“So, we are saying that we need to narrow that gap, we need to continue to negotiate for mutually beneficial favourable business conditions. But, also as Zimbabwe, we need to improve our export bucket to ensure that there are more products and services that the Indian market can get from Zimbabwe.
“Some of the products that Zimbabweans export to India include minerals, coffee, tea and spices among others,” said Amb Nkomo.
She said there is a scope for cooperation especially with Indian companies and Zimbabwe stands to benefit from tapping from the value addition expertise of the Indians.
Amb Nkomo said there are other areas in which Zimbabwe can explore cooperation like the education sector.
“What we need to do now is to value add our products, especially mineral resources and one of the conversations that we had currently is to have Indian companies coming to set up value addition plants in Zimbabwe,” said Amb Nkomo.
“Also, India has a vibrant education sector and universities back home can come and explore cooperation or partnership endeavours with their Indian counterparts.
“India is also good at technology, the world is moving fast and technology is taking over the running of their businesses so they can also come and collaborate on technology and our main target is technological transfer to our country. The other issue has to do with funding, the majority of our business people back home are looking for funding for their products and services as well as ideas so this is a platform to explore investment and funding opportunities”.
She said India is also an advanced market with vast opportunities.
Online Reporter