Mabasa Sasa in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
Zimbabwe seeks to attract investment from Turkey by leveraging on its rich mineral endowment and the opportunities it offers those interested in putting money into infrastructure and energy development, Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi has said.

In an interview after the first session of an executive dialogue of Ministers of Foreign Affairs at the 2nd Africa-Summit here yesterday, he said engagement with the country, which lies at the border of Europe and the Middle East, would take on both a bilateral and regional hue.

Zimbabwe is representing Southern Africa at the summit by virtue of President Mugabe holding the Sadc Chair post. He is also First Deputy Chair of the African Union.

Minister Mumbengegwi said not much progress had been registered in improving African-Turkey trade relations since the inaugural summit in Istanbul in 2008, and it was Zimbabwe’s hope that the situation would improve henceforth.

He said: “The Africa-Turkey partnership meeting is being held along what we call the Banjul formula whereby the African Union agreed that in some of our partnerships it is not necessary for all the 53 countries invited to come meet one country. It was then decided that only representatives of various regions should participate at such meetings; and so Zimbabwe is attending representing the SADC region as the current Chair of Sadc.

“The general feeling is that we have not made much progress over the past six years, when the first summit was held in Istanbul . . . and so the documentation that we have been looking at was more or less like a repetition of what we have had said six years ago, and clearly the partnership needs some impetus injected into it in order to make it a productive one.

“Zimbabwe is very rich in natural resources. In fact, about two, three months ago we had a very high-powered Turkish delegation that came to Zimbabwe – businesspeople and investors – to look at opportunities for possible investment.

“So we think we will be able to attract considerable interest from Turkish investors on account of our endowment.”

Minister Mumbengegwi said the variety of resources and opportunities made Zimbabwe an ideal investment destination for Turkey and other countries.

On how Sadc and the AU planned to concretise ties with Turkey, the minister said: “Essentially there will be three documents that will be adopted by the summit which the ministerial meeting is looking at, which the senior officials have also looked at.

“The first one is the Joint Implementation Plan 2015-2018, it’s a four-year plan indicating the implementation of the various projects in the various areas that we have agreed to co-operate in over the next four years.

“The second one is the joint matrix of the same period 2015-2018 which gives a more detailed background of the kind of projects that the two partners are going to implement; and the third one is the general political declaration that will be adopted and so essentially these are the three documents which crystallise the work that the officials and ministers have looked at and are now recommending to the summit of heads tomorrow (today) . . .

“The documentation that I referred to covers possibilities for the whole continent and we are representing Sadc and therefore the decisions of this meeting also apply to Sadc (and) ultimately each of the countries will not neglect the bilateral interaction with Turkey.

“So the interaction is at bilateral level, at the regional level and the continental level. In other words, where projects are best done at national level they will be done where they are best done; at regional level – especially infrastructure and so on – they will be done on regional level.

“But we are also looking at the continental level. You are aware of our blueprint 2063 Agenda now that gives a continental view. So investments can be done at those (different) levels.”

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