Sikhulekelani Moyo
Bulawayo Bureau
INTERNATIONAL buyers who attended the ZimTrade 2026 Buyers Meeting in Bulawayo yesterday said direct engagements with local suppliers and clarity on the country’s trade facilitation platforms have restored confidence in doing business with Zimbabwe.
The buyers meeting is part of a broader programme that will culminate in a buyers seminar in Harare tomorrow, connecting visiting buyers from Mozambique, Zambia, DRC, Rwanda, the UK, Poland, China and Germany with local producers.
Speaking on the sidelines of the seminar, two buyers from Eswatini said the business-to-business platform organised by national trade promotion and development body ZimTrade addressed long-standing concerns around trust, payment security and access to credible suppliers.
Mr Sifiso Dlamini, representing Eswatini Agricultural Supplies, said his company had previously struggled to trade with Zimbabwean firms due to unfamiliarity with its people and reservations over upfront payment risks.
“I’m here at the ZimTrade seminar for business-to-business engagements.
“So, we have been trying to do business with Zimbabwean companies, but we have found it very difficult, especially because we were not familiar with the people. Where we did not have trust in terms of paying upfront, because the procedure was to pay upfront, we would say, what guarantee do we have?” said Mr Dlamini.
“But based on the presentations that have been done and the initiative that the ZimTrade has put in place, it has changed our mindset completely in terms of their policies and also in terms of how they’ve grouped the platform for the supplier and supplier groups, which was highlighted.”
Meeting suppliers face-to-face and understanding available banking channels would make trade easier.
“Through the engagement, we created a lot of confidence to say we can do business in Zimbabwe if you look at the platforms which are available and their available banking system.
“We have Standard Bank in Eswatini; they have Standard Bank in Zimbabwe, so it will make life a little bit easier and the fact that we have met the people that we want to work with, want to source the product, has given us confidence,” he said.
“When I return home, I feel like with what will be happening in the summit after the B2B it will be very simple to continue with our transactions and do business and continue, even to do business for other items apart from what we want to source currently.
“Currently we are targeting soya beans that we want to buy into Zimbabwe; we have been busy with that; we want to source soya beans into Zimbabwe,” he said.
Another buyer, Mr Michael Chibetete, representing Farm Chemicals Eswatini, a distributor operating in Eswatini, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa, said the visit was a great opportunity to assess Zimbabwean products for inclusion in their distribution line.
“It’s a great opportunity to come and interact with the buyers here. We’re also a distributor and seller, so we’d want to get what Zimbabwean producers have and also include them in our line of distribution,” said Mr Chibetete.
Key considerations include product registrations and compliance with destination markets.
