EDITORIAL COMMENT: Growing Zim, Belarus ties to help boost mining and agric sectors President Mnangagwa

Relations between Zimbabwe and Belarus are developing very fast amid hopes that planned investments will materialise as soon as possible.

The east European nation is commendably industrialised and strong in agriculture and manufacture of capital equipment useful for the mining and farming sectors.

A few years ago, Zimbabwe received Belarusian machinery for coal and diamond mining operations. In January, President Mnangagwa visited Belarus and together with his host Alexander Lukashenko, witnessed the signing of eight agreements covering various aspects of education and training, science and technology, agriculture and legal issues such as extradition. They also agreed to develop a huge infrastructure scheme that could make Zimbabwe a transport and logistics hub for southern Africa.

As a follow-up, the Deputy Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement Deputy Minister Vangelis Haritatos visited Belarus in June. Minsk will provide equipment worth US$52 million and by Deputy Minister Haritatos’ visit; the order under the facility was 50 percent complete and ready to be shipped.

On Sunday, Belarus Chief of Presidential Affairs General Colonel Victor Sheiman landed in Harare on a visit to update progress on the deals. He announced on arrival that 500 buses would soon be delivered to Zimbabwe under a facility to boost the local transport system.

On Monday, he held a three-hour meeting with President Mnangagwa after which he announced a plan for Belarus to invest in a 100 megawatt solar-power plant while reiterating his country’s commitment to build the joint venture transport and logistics hub here.  Belarus also wants to invest in an agriculture project expected to be on a 10 000 hectare piece of land in the country.

“One other issue we discussed is on the energy sector. We have a task to create an energy generation company. This company will have a solar power plant. The power station will have the capacity of 100MW and will be installed 40 kilometres from Harare. This company will be engaged in transmitting electricity and distributing equipment,” said Gen Col Sheiman.

He said a company would also be involved in road construction and other infrastructure.

“It will be one of the biggest construction companies. According to instruction from President Mnangagwa we are going into agriculture which will be a joint venture between Zimbabwe and Belarus,” he said.

The cooperation will extend to the transport sector as well.

“It (joint venture) will be involved in moving cargo in Zimbabwe and Southern African countries. It will transport cargo from seaports in Mozambique to Zimbabwe, providing transport services from Zimbabwe to seaports of Mozambique. We will then include this network of Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. Second stage is the creation of biggest logistic centre to facilitate the work of this company, this logistic centre will convert into dry seaport of Zimbabwe,” he said.

We are seeing much determination on both sides to ensure that agreed projects come to fruition as soon as possible.  

Provision of equipment for the local mining and agriculture sectors will help unlock the tremendous potential that exists in both. We know, for example, that the fleet of tractors in the farming sector is not only aged but also very small to meet demand in a growing industry.  After the land reform programme, tens of thousands new farmers have had to invest much money in mechanising their operations to reach the level that white former farmers were before 2000.  

Apart from tractors, combine harvesters, centre pivots and others are in short supply.  In mining, there is a need for higher capacity earth-moving equipment, for example.    

The growing partnership with Belarus should go a long way in mechanising both sectors. As a result of overreliance on smaller pieces of aged equipment local farmers and miners are not producing to their full potential. The new machines from Belarus will boost their potentials and the economy at large. It is hoped that the machinery would be competitively priced for emerging farmers and miners to afford them while ensuring that the suppliers make a profit as well.  

The logistical hub that is being planned will be built on, among other factors, our country’s geographical advantage. Zimbabwe is at the heart of southern Africa, not too far away from the sea yet close to key economies whose exporting and importing sectors must pass through our territory to reach sea ports.  

We look forward to the delivery of the farm and mining equipment for interested farmers and miners to start acquiring and using them.  

However, as co-operation between Harare and Minsk continues to grow, we would be happier if assembly plants were set up here. If this happens, the economy would derive more benefits in terms of job creation, easier access to after-sales service, in its industrialisation drive and so on. The planned logistics hub will create jobs too at construction and operational stages while improving government revenues.

We can’t wait to see the projects taking off and machinery beginning to work in local mines and farms.    

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