The Sunday News
Njabulo Bhebe, Business Reporter
THE country’s trade and export promotion body, ZimTrade says firms should start tapping into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) markets as the country possesses market opportunities which if utilised would increase Zimbabwe’s export volumes and inter-continental trade relations.
Speaking during an Africa mining review organised discussion which focused on ‘Infinite possibilities-promoting trade between Zimbabwe and DRC’ last week, ZimTrade chief executive office Mr Allan Majuru said there was a need for the country to turn existing political relations between the two countries into business relations.
“DRC is a very key market in terms of doing business, the two countries go way back looking at political relations so we need to ride on that to make sure we utilise the opportunities that are there because if you look at trade numbers between the two countries they are insignificant but yet there are lot of opportunities we can tap into and we are also members of Sadc at the moment and we have trade agreements that facilitate trade and we are not taking advantage of them. If you look at the top 10 importers for DRC we are not in that list so the reason why we are engaging is we want to change that narration and turn the political relations into business relations,” said Mr Majuru
He also said the organisation was doing everything in its capacity to ensure local firms participated at the DRC Mining Week as that was going to go a long way in reinforcing business relations between the two countries.
“To date as ZimTrade we have managed to facilitate a lot of companies to participate at the DRC Mining Week and some of them have even set up distributorship in the country like Boltgas and we have big companies that have set their footprint there like Mega Packaging, Hwange Colliery that are exporting coal just to mention a few, so this platform is meant to enhance that initiative and for us to share ideas on how best we can penetrate the market seamlessly,” he said.
Mr Majuru said an association that linked trade between the two countries was being developed to facilitate trade.
“We are currently in the process of putting in place a Zimbabwe, DRC business association that can also help us make sure that the leakages in the private sector are strengthened. Zimbabwe has a vibrant and diversified manufacturing industry which can supply FMCG goods to the DRC having said that logistics issues and language barriers need to be overcome,” he added.
Speaking during the same event vice-president of Federation des Entreprises du Congo Mr Simon Tuma-Waku said there was a need for African countries to foster inter regional trade in many sectors to ensure economic growth.
