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Prosper Ndlovu recently in Niamey, Niger

ZIMBABWE is ready to tap into available regional economic development finance packages to bolster its industrial transformation drive as the country strives to increase domestic production and contribution to regional trade.

President Mnangagwa revealed this in an interview with the media on Friday at the close of the Africa Union (AU) Extra-Ordinary Heads of States and Government Summit on Industrialisation and Economic Transformation, which was held in Niamey, Niger in West Africa.

During the high-level indaba, President Mnangagwa engaged with regional counterparts, shared insights about Zimbabwe’s economic transformation story and invited heads of regional finance bodies to visit the country for more detailed investment talks and how Zimbabwe could access existing funding packages.

This was after executives of top regional financial institutions — Africa Export and Import Bank (Afreximbank) and African Development Bank (AfDB) — in their presentations during the official opening session of the summit, outlined a chain of funding facilities for member states to utilise in growing their industrial capacities and scaling up intra-regional trade.

Coming out of a lengthy closed-door meeting, President Mnangagwa said the quest for regional integration came under intense deliberation by the continent’s leaders, and underscored the need to ensure that every African member state plays its part.

He said harnessing opportunities under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) must be embraced by all countries and that Zimbabwe, as one of the pioneer signatories to the historic trade deal, was already a step ahead of others in terms of positioning itself for continental integration.

By championing rural industrialisation, driving value chain manufacturing modelling, boosting agriculture output to substitute import reliance, scaling up infrastructure investments, as well as embracing science, technology and innovation, President Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe was already addressing bottlenecks that impeded economic growth and trade in the past. “I realise that looking at the content of discussion and the papers that have been put forward at the summit, Zimbabwe is comfortable because we have already embraced these back home,” said the President.

“Zimbabwe is focusing on all these enablers, there is hardly any area where Zimbabwe is lagging behind. But beyond that, the Afreximbank representative, Professor (Bennedict) Oramah and the AfDB, showed several financing windows, which are available and we were not actually aware of these.

“After the meeting I sent messages to both presidents that I would want them to come so that we discuss to see how Zimbabwe can access some of the financial windows that they had explained to the conference.”

Financing industrialisation in Africa, and scaling up existing flagship programmes, as the new approach to pursuing robust industrial transformation, was part of the key topics for discussion.

As such, President Mnangagwa said unlocking regional finance opportunities was most critical for Zimbabwe, whose development thrust is being hampered by continued imposition of sanctions by the United States of America and its Western allies.

Due to sanctions, the country is unable to access fresh lines of credit from global finance houses while a compromised country risk profile frustrates foreign direct investments and smooth trade flow.

In his speech, Prof Oramah said Africa economic transformation would be defined by the level of access to finance to drive key industrial capitalisation and growing intra-regional trade.

He went on to outline several funding packages offered by Afreximbank including Covid-19 cushioning support for central banks estimated at about US$80 billion, support for procurement of key commodities such as fertiliser and trade facilitation, among others.

In a statement read by a senior bank official, AfDB president, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, said the whole of Africa must embrace the AfCFTA and challenged member states to wean themselves of reliance of raw commodity exports through value chain development.

He said scaling agriculture production was the prime area of opportunity for the continent and revealed that the bank has availed up to US$25 billion to finance agro-industrial projects in the continent.

Dr Adesina also said the bank has funding facilities for unlocking new power projects with focus on climate adaptation, value chain industrial production and capacitating women and the youth.

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister, Dr Frederick Shava, who attended preliminary meetings prior to the Heads of States and Government Session, together with Industry and Commerce Minister, Dr Sekai Nzenza, stated that major discussions were focused on several measures that member states could implement to catalyse Africa’s industrialisation agenda, in line with the aspirations of Agenda 2063.

“We interrogated critical issues that are pertinent to the industrialisation agenda such as: industrialising Africa through regional value chains development, innovation, Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and technology transfer for enhanced productivity,” said the minister in a statement.