The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
THE United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Sub-Regional Office for Southern Africa in collaboration with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) Secretariat as well as the Ministry of Industry and Commerce have held sensitisation workshops in Harare and Bulawayo.
The workshops were meant to establish and manage common agro-industrial parks between Zambia and Zimbabwe under the joint industrialisation cooperation programme between the two neighbours.
In a statement, UNECA said the objectives of the workshops were to sensitise stakeholders on the Comesa Industrialisation Strategy and Action Plan; and on the Zambia-Zimbabwe Joint Industrialisation Programme and opportunities offered to regional member States.
“The Joint Industrialisation Cooperation Programme aims to increase the availability of industrial goods and services for the bilateral market among themselves, expand intra- regional trade in manufacturers, develop industrialists that would own and manage the industries, develop appropriate skills and knowledge in industries and strengthen collaboration and networking among policy makers, regulators, industry and academia,” read the statement.
Minister of Industry and Commerce Dr Sekai Nzenza said it was critical and timeous to have the workshops in regional industrialisation and value chain development.
She noted that the two countries share an expansive border, stretching from Mashonaland West to Matabeleland North on the Zimbabwean side, with the Chirundu One-Stop-Border Post (OSBP) being one key infrastructure for trade facilitation on the North-South Corridor for the greater SADC and Comesa market.
ECA Sub regional Office for Southern Africa director Ms Eunice Kamwendo applauded the Zambia and Zimbabwe governments on the decision to deepen regional integration through cooperation in productive activities which exploit natural comparative advantages in both member states within the overall framework of industrial development under the SADC and Comesa industrialisation strategies.
She noted that this initiative alone, a simple step, moved the two countries closer to those higher goals, pulling the whole sub-region with them in the process. — @NyembeziMu
