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By Joyce Mukucha
Zimbabwe and China continue to strengthen relationships aimed at enhancing production capacity, foreign and domestic investments through the creation of competitive Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that attract investors.
Speaking during a five-day Online Capacity Building Workshop which kick-started yesterday with a focus on Zimbabwe-China Economic Reform and Transition Cooperation Project, Deputy Chief Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Ambassador Nicholas Kitikiti said reforms being undertaken by Zimbabwe are aimed at increasing national economic competitiveness, productivity, foreign direct investment inflows as well as improving business models with China.
He said the Capacity Building Programme was organised by the Government of Zimbabwe in partnership with the government of the People’s Republic of China and the International Cooperation Centre-National Development and Reform Commission (ICC-NDRC) follows two highly successful similar virtual programmes held since the advent of the global Covid-19 pandemic.
“Prior to the advent of this pandemic, similar training sessions were being held in the People’s Republic of China and some familiarization programmes for our partners have taken place in Zimbabwe. These study visits and capacity building programmes have been taking place both in Zimbabwe and China since October 2016 with the last study visit having been undertaken in October 2019 in the People’s Republic of China,” he said.
Ambassador Kitikiti said the capacity building training programme has a plethora of objectives which include further enhance the Cooperation Framework signed between the Government of Zimbabwe as represented by OPC and the People’s Republic of China as represented by the ICC-NDRC.
“The online Workshop will discuss and learn from our Chinese interlocutors their policies and experiences on with the regards to the Optimization of a national business environment.It will learn about China’s experiences on formulating and implementing Business Regulatory Reforms,”
He added that the workshop’s main thrust was to discuss how China Africa Trade Cooperation can enhance the competitiveness of African countries in attracting investments as well as widening volumes of value-added exports to China.
These capacity Building Programmes, he said, has really assisted Zimbabwe’s approaches in designing national development initiatives explaining that the two countries still have a long way to go in as much as discussing issues to attract investment are concerned.
“In the near future, cooperation with our Chinese partners, we will be evaluating the impact and this rich cooperation programme. In the next Capacity Building Programme we plan to add value by including some training on marketing products and services to China. In addition, within our spirit of friendship and historic ties, we should freely discuss emerging issues such as those affecting Chinese investments in Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe in China.”
Ambassador Kitikiti also highlighted that these macro- economic and trade policy interventions are included in the economic reforms which underpin Vision 2030 and the National Development Strategy 1 (2021-2025) whose main objective is to create an Upper Middle Income Economy by 2030.
“Moving with the agenda to create an enabling environment for investment in line with the country’s Vision 2030 of creating an Upper Middle Income Economy by 2030, Zimbabwe training sessions aimed at gaining some valuable experiences and lessons in terms of designing effective, macro-economic policies, sectoral strategies and specific mechanisms for industrial development.”
Chinese Deputy General, ICC-NDRC, Chang Hai said China was very much willing to share its experiences and lessons learnt with Africa and to make ease of doing business a core content in China- Africa Cooperation.
“As the virus is still wreaking havoc, the reform in the business environment is a vital tool to revive the economy. The ease of doing business is conducive to supporting market entities and releases positive signals to the trade partners in the world.
“We are very willing to share China’s experiences with our African friends and strengthen China-Africa Cooperation, do as to assist Zimbabwe and other African countries in optimizing business environment and accelerating the development of SEZs in Zimbabwe and AfCFTA at large,” said Hao.
Hao stressed that to develop AfCFTA, was imperative to optimize the business environment by making it low-based in line with international standard and facilitated for market players.
He added that fostering a market environment featured by equality, unity and efficiency, significantly reduce or even remove trade barriers, accelerate the urbanization and industrialization process of African countries, and continue to expand economic size in a bid to strengthen the trade within the region and attract more foreign investment.