DSE News Network
This week’s Zim SA Business Chamber brought together business people, investors, industrialists, entrepreneurs, business leaders, financiers and the media to the Forvis Mazar complex in Melrose.
And the event didn’t disappoint. Infact it was a top-drawer networking session this week in what is fast becoming a not-to-missed Zim-SA Business Chamber calender event.
This week’s event was proudly sponsored by Forvis Mazar – and featured distinguished main speakers in the form of business executives Darlington Hukuimwe who presented a talk about private sector leadership and investment opportunities in Zimbabwe’s key growth areas, and economist Tinashe Murapata – who runs Leon Africa – whose keynote address focused on Zimbabwe’s economic outlook.
Zim-SA Chamber CEO Dorriane Sithole got the programme going with the opening remarks – before she invited Zim SA Business Chamber President Farai Madziwanyika to set the tone and explain what the Zim-SA Business Chamber organisation is doing in promoting trade and investment between Zimbabwe and South Africa.
But before that Zimbabwe Deputy Ambassador Shephard Gwenzi – standing in for Ambassador David Hamadziripi – said that Zimbabwe had done a lot in recent years to bring the country up to speed with international norms and standards in trade and investment.
He said that Zimbabwe continued to offer abundant opportunities in mining, agriculture, infrastructure and commodities – and lithium had emerged as a strategic mineral in the commodities sphere.
He said the Zimbabwe government is pushing ahead with connecting business and investors to opportunities, but at the same time connecting the people of Zimbabwe to opportunities to access capital and investors looking to enter into strategic minerals and investment areas in Zimbabwe.
He said Zimbabwe offered multiple growth areas in the services industry and there is a focus on industrialisation and beneficiation, through to export industrial zones and technology growth areas – and at the same time with the government maintaining a vibrant fiscal policy framework to facilitate trade and unlock opportunities.
He also assured everyone at the meeting that the political environment of Zimbabwe is stable and that both the President and the Vice President were working together.
Business Executive Darlington Hukuimwe spoke about private sector leadership and investment opportunities in Zimbabwe’s key growth sectors.
He said that Zimbabwe is sitting on billions worth of lithium deposits: and at the same time there is a huge demand for power and energy in many sectors across the world and it is growing.
All that Zimbabweans could do is to set up a big battery manufacturing plant in Zimbabwe, produce all types of power solutions, and export to the world.
Zimbabwe is also sitting on huge deposits of graphite, but on the contrary, the country is importing graphite products. Zimbabwe had barely even touched the gold deposits in the country, and the need for gold is a no brainer.
Yet most of the gold is exported to the Middle East for refining, and we buy it back as jewellery, he said. He also emphasised the growth potential of agriculture: blue berries, paprika, chillies: but at the same time bemourned the lack of proper packaging to represent brand Zimbabwe.
Business executive Tinashe Murapata said that Zimbabwe had its good side, but as well it had a bad and ugly side: it is up to the enterprising entrepreneur to be resilient- adding that Zimbabwe is like a Sunday roast: it takes time to be ready.
He said: Business is made by those who invest and stay for 5 to ten years: not those who are looking at making quick money. With remittances alone contributing over $2 billion into Zimbabwe alone: there are massive opportunities for the consumer-facing services industry.
He said that Zimbabwe is a country with over 500 000 gold miners – and there are opportunities to build gold refineries. He said that bot the difficulties and the ease of doing business in Zimbabwe, saying that the country was literally floating on gold – it was simply a question of negotiating between the politics, and finding the opportunities.
He said that farmers could literally stumble upon gold while they were ploughing their fields, and lithium was also sprouting up everywhere.
Event sponsor Fast Jet, represented by marketing executive Megan Wilson – announced that budget airline Fastjet Zimbabwe will begin direct flights between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls next month, a move expected to enhance connectivity in the Matabeleland and boost domestic tourism.
The new route will operate four times a week — on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays — starting on August 8, using the airline’s 50-seater Embraer regional jets.
Wilson said that the new service strengthens the airline’s growing footprint in Zimbabwe’s second-largest city while supporting the country’s tourism and business sectors.
“Our four-times-a-week flights will offer more travel opportunities and support both leisure and corporate travel between the two cities.”
The flights will depart Bulawayo at 1.25PM and land in Victoria Falls at 2.20PM. The return leg leaves Victoria Falls at 2.50PM, arriving in Bulawayo at 3.45PM.
Chief Commercial Officer Vivian Ruwuya said the launch follows “widespread consultative engagements” with stakeholders in the travel and tourism sectors.
“This has been a long time coming,” she said. “We have been monitoring the development and traffic trends between the manufacturing city of Bulawayo and our tourism hub of Victoria Falls.”
The Bulawayo–Victoria Falls route becomes the latest addition to Fastjet’s domestic network, which already links Harare, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls, along with international routes to South Africa and Zambia.
The airline, which began operations in Zimbabwe in 2015, said that it is also looking at diversifying into the freight sector and that a courier component for small parcels will soon be operating.
