Zim, Tanzania move to strengthen economic ties

Source: Zim, Tanzania move to strengthen economic ties – herald

Nyore Madzianike

Senior Reporter

ZIMBABWE and Tanzania are set to deepen their economic cooperation following high-level discussions held in Harare yesterday between Vice President Dr Kembo Mohadi and Tanzania’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ms Suzan Kaganda.

This was after Ambassador Kaganda paid a courtesy call on the Vice President at his offices, where discussions centred on enhancing bilateral relations, with a strong focus on trade, tourism and sectoral cooperation.

Speaking to journalists after the courtesy call, Ambassador Kaganda said the engagement provided an opportunity to reflect on existing areas of collaboration and map a way forward.

“Today (yesterday) I had a good moment to discuss some issues of cooperation with the Vice President.

“Among the issues that we touched on and he emphasised is our Joint Permanent Commission on Cooperation meeting, knowing that we have our bilateral cooperation in Zimbabwe and Tanzania.

“But issues of trade, issues to do with tourism promotion among our two countries and as we all understand, in implementing our bilateral cooperation, we have started a direct flight from Tanzania to Victoria Falls.

“This is just a way of enhancing our tourism, but also trade and our cooperation,” she said.

Ambassador Kaganda said discussions also covered cooperation in key productive sectors like mining and agriculture.

“So those were the issues we discussed and also our cooperation in the mining and agricultural sector; we touched on those areas,” she said.

The Tanzanian envoy, however, underscored the need to increase trade volumes between the two countries.

“Yeah, the trade volumes we need to do more. We need to do more in terms of our business people, but also investing,” she said.

Ambassador Kaganda highlighted the importance of leveraging existing infrastructure and investment opportunities.

“As you understand, Zimbabwe uses our port of Dar-es-Salaam, especially for transporting vehicles, but we don’t see much of materials and goods.

“But we have investors from Zimbabwe, we have SeedCo, it is a Zimbabwe company which have invested in Tanzania,” she said.

She said there was a need to scale up cooperation in agriculture and mining, while encouraging greater participation by businesses.