The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo and Precious Maphosa , Business Reporters
ORGANISERS of the country’s premier mining, engineering, transport and construction exhibition, Mine Entra, the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) Company have described this year’s event as being highly successful with numerous exhibitors clinching lucrative deals.
ZITF Company marketing and public relations manager, Ms Stella Nkomo, said most exhibitors were satisfied with the number of inquiries and business deals they obtained at this year’s edition of Mine Entra. The exhibition which started on Wednesday and ended on Friday in Bulawayo was held under the theme, “Mineral Beneficiation: Catalyst for Economic Growth.”
“The majority of exhibitors whom we have engaged with have indicated that they are pleased with the quality of attendees as they were able to discuss and seal lucrative deals. While the remainder had made good leads that were likely to yield positive results in the short to medium term,” she said.
Ms Nkomo also said this year there was increased interest in the exhibition compared to the previous year.
“This year’s show saw a significant increase in interest from players in the mining and related industries attracting a total of 251 exhibitors showcasing the evolving innovations in the mining industry. This figure represents an increase of 64 percent exhibitor uptake from last year’s closing total of 153,” she said.
Of the 251 total exhibitors, 225 were direct exhibitors while 26 were indirect exhibitors. A total of 7 280 square metres of space were taken up representing 90.3 percent of available space (8,080 m2). Four countries took part at this year’s show namely China, Japan, South Africa and Zambia. These countries were represented by 12 individual companies and five subsidiaries.
“The increase in international foreign participation is reflective of a successful national re-engagement strategy targeted at influencing investment in identified key drivers of the Zimbabwean economy,” said Ms Nkomo.
Local participation was also 55 percent up from last year with 234 exhibitors taking part. Of these, 55 percent of the exhibitors came from Harare while 39 percent came from Bulawayo and the remainder from other cities. Ms Nkomo also praised the exhibitors for putting up impressive displays.
“The quality of exhibits was also quite impressive offering a mix of equipment and services suitable for different sizes of mining operations as well as goods and services for other activities within the mining value chain. Popular exhibits included locally-assembled granby cars, underground supervision and transport vehicles, turnkey mining plants for small scale miners, many of which haven’t been seen at the show for a while,” she said.
Ms Nkomo highlighted that the event’s networking platforms were also highly attended.
“In addition to a highly successful exhibition, Mine Entra 2018 also hosted a number of well-attended networking and knowledge sharing platforms aimed at leveraging on the country’s competitive advantages in the vast and diversified mineral resource endowment to stimulate economic development,” she said.
The exhibition saw the hosting of the Women in Mining Breakfast Conference, which attracted 220 participants, Young Professionals’ Forum and Mine Entra Conference.
“The conference underscored the need for a continuous assessment of the policy environment to enable an expansion in the scope and capacities of the industry. We are confident that we shall see positive results being achieved in the medium to longer term as the commitment to continuous engagement and to follow through on conference resolutions was palpable,” said Ms Nkomo.
Meanwhile, Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister, Polite Kambamura said small-scale miners have continued to be the bedrock of gold mining in Zimbabwe. He said the Government will continue to look after the miners and will soon release more mining claims to small scale miners.
“Government is recognising this mining sector and is prepared to support it as the mining sector contributes more than 60 percent of the national economic development. It is high time large scale operators make use of their claims if they are not going to use them they should be handed to the small scale operators,” he said.
Zimbabwe Miners’ Federation (ZMF) president Ms Henrietta Rushwaya said her organisation was working to ensure all the miners are properly registered.
“A total of 16 percent of small scale miners are registered therefore as a Federation we are working towards coming up with a uniform fee countrywide for all small scale miners so that they have proper licensing documents,” said Ms Rushwaya.
