The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
MOST of the exhibitors at this year’s Mine Entra managed to clinch lucrative deals heralding the increased appetite by potential investors to participate in the country’s mining sector.
Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) Company public relations and marketing manager Ms Stella Nkomo said most exhibitors at this year’s mining, engineering and transport expo, which ended in Bulawayo on Friday expressed satisfaction with the business deals they managed to clinch.
“A 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.
Preliminary survey results show that 86 percent of exhibitors had met their participation objectives and the same number would be recommending participation in Mine Entra 2020 to their peers,” she said.
Ms Nkomo said the three-day event of high-level business networking provided an opportune platform for mining stakeholders to deliberate on issues aimed at facilitating the growth of the sector.
“Coming at a time when growth prospects for the mining sector are high and it is being challenged to take the lead in the national economic growth agenda, Mine Entra 2019 provided an opportune platform for key stakeholder discussions on how to leverage the country’s huge resource base and exploit its upside potential.
The event programme was structured to promote on-site connections through a number of networking and knowledge sharing platforms which were well attended,” she said.
Ms Nkomo said the inter-ministerial roundtable discussion highlighted various opportunities in the mining value-chain to be exploited towards the attainment of the Government’s Vision 2030.
“Of note, was the commitment by the Government to collaborate more and ensure that its policies and programmes are in sync in order to achieve accelerated economic growth.
It was the consensus of the meeting that solutions for both upstream and downstream sector value chain challenges were not going to come from a singular group but would need an all-hands-on-deck approach,” she said.
Ms Nkomo said of note was Government’s commitment at expediting the amendment of the Mines and Minerals Act, which is largely expected to culminate in increased investment in the mining sector.
“The Minister of Mines and Mining Development (Winston Chitando) also informed participants that they were working on speeding up the amendment of the Mines and Minerals Act, which seeks to provide an improved and competitive mining legislative framework which offers a conducive environment for local and foreign investors while at the same time curtailing prejudice to the national fiscus,” she said.
A total of 211 exhibitors participated at this year’s show with 162 of these being direct exhibitors while 49 were indirect exhibits. The space
taken up was 5 175 square metres representing about 90 percent of the total space available.
“In terms of local participation, 56 percent of exhibitors came from Harare while 35 percent came from Bulawayo and the remainder from other cities with 40 percent of local participants being local manufacturers of mining equipment and supplies while 33 percent represented service providers to the sector,” said Ms Nkomo.
Four countries took part at this year’s exhibition and these were China, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia.
Recorded visitors were from Botswana, Canada, China, Eritrea, Ghana, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa, Switzerland and United Kingdom.
