LIVINGSTONE MARUFU
A business delegation from Belarus arrived in Zimbabwe Sunday to look for investment opportunities as economic ties between the country and the European nation enters a new path.
The Belarusian team is seeking opportunities in a number of economic sectors and the local business community will meet the team on Monday, Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) president Mike Kamungeremu told Business Times.
“The delegation which landed on Sunday said the investors from Belarus are mainly interested in mining, especially diamonds, agriculture equipment, manufacturing and transport among other sectors,” Kamungeremu said, adding that ZNCC and other business member organisations will host the delegation up to Wednesday.
ZNCC and the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2019.
The visit by the Belarusian business delegation comes as Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko is expected Monday afternoon to meet his counterpart Emmerson Mnangagwa for talks aimed at strengthening the two countries’ relations. The State visit, Lukashenko’s first trip to a sub Saharan country will run up to February 1.
The two countries have strong cooperation in political, economic, mining, agriculture and disaster risk management with several agreements are under consideration and are expected to be signed during the visit.
The two Presidents are expected to launch the Second Phase of the Zimbabwe- Belarus Agricultural Mechanisation Programme.
Zimbabwe’s relations with Belarus took off in 2015, when Mnangagwa, then the late former President Robert Mugabe’s deputy, met with the Eastern European country’s leader Lukashenko.
In 2019, Mnangagwa visited Belarus and the two countries signed cooperation agreements after Lukashenko said his administration saw great opportunities in Belarus-Zimbabwe cooperation and promised to visit Harare.
Since then there have been business deals between the two countries.
However, Zimbabwe’s deals with Belarus have been mired in controversy after it emerged that the government last year procured fire-fighting vehicles for local authorities despite the fact that the councils never asked for them.
