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Chinese ambassador Lin Lin

Harare Bureau
CHINA’S ambassador to Zimbabwe Lin Lin has scoffed at critics of Zimbabwe and China’s multi-million dollar deals signed recently in the Asian country and urged the two countries to put interests of their people first. Lin, speaking at a Zimpapers Business Breakfast Meeting in Harare yesterday, said he was baffled by some sections of the local Press which suggested that the mega infrastructure deals that were sealed during President Robert Mugabe’s week-long visit were “pies in the sky”.

He said: “If it’s true this (that the deals were pies in the sky), then I believe Zimbabwe can fly high.”
Lin said President Mugabe’s visit to China was hugely successful as demonstrated by the commitments made by the Asian country’s top political leadership.

“I should say the commitments by President Xi Jinping are very serious,” he said.
“The two countries should work together to put the interests of their people together.”

Lin said China and Zimbabwe should work together to implement the recently-signed infrastructure deals between the two countries for the mutual benefit of their economies.

Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who signed the infrastructure deals, said if the deals where pies in the sky, “let us go for these pies in the sky.”

Lin commended the visit to China by President Mugabe and several government ministers, saying it buttressed the long-standing bilateral and investment relations between the two countries.

During the visit to China, Chinamasa signed several multimillion dollar deals for financing of infrastructure projects in energy, road and rail, ICTs and agriculture.

China’s political leadership committed funding to projects in trunk road dualisation, expansion of power stations (Kariba and Hwange), digitalisation of national broadcaster ZBC and Transmedia expansion of TelOne’s fibre optic network and furthering coverage of NetOne’s mobile network.

The infrastructural projects, Minister Chinamasa said, would address deficits in the country’s infrastructure backbone, which would drive economic growth in the near term through increased investment and low cost of doing business.

Chinamasa said that China had committed to availing financing for completion of dam and irrigation projects which would open up 20,000 hectares of irrigated land.

Chinamasa also engaged Chinese state and non-state financial institutions for extension of lines of credit to productive sectors of the economy, including finance to the private sector.