The governments of Zimbabwe and Zambia have announced a joint venture on industrial projects. This follows the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at facilitating close collaboration between the two countries towards rejuvenating the manufacturing sector.
Zimbabwe’s Industry and Commerce Minister, Dr Sekai Nzenza made the announcement and said that the joint venture efforts would assist the two countries to unlock higher economic potential in line with regional industrialisation ideals.
The two neighbouring countries seek to utilise complementarities of national resources in key sectors to drive value-addition of skills, technology and marketing, among other capabilities.
“So far, the governments of Zambia and Zimbabwe have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to form a Joint Industrialization Cooperation Programme, which will facilitate deeper collaboration by setting up joint ventures. Priority sectors include agriculture and agro-processing, mining and mineral beneficiation, petrochemicals, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals, capital goods industries, textiles, forest and timber-based industries, building materials and knowledge economy, among others,” Dr Nzenza.
Regional value chains
According to Dr Nzenza, the two countries were well positioned to develop and facilitate regional value chains based on their comparative advantages. For instance, she said copper from Zambia could be smelted at Mhangura in Zimbabwe while cotton from Zimbabwe could be ginned at Mulungushi Textiles in Kabwe, Zambia.
The implementation of specific strategies to facilitate industrial development are in line with the country’s Vision 2030 of transforming Zimbabwe into a prosperous and empowered upper middle-income society.
“The intention is to establish common agro-industrial parks based on comparative advantage. Such an initiative requires a harmonised framework of managing Special Economic Zones and industrial parks at regional level,” said Dr Nzenza.
