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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter

Indonesia is keen on deepening economic ties with Zimbabwe especially in agriculture and mining under the South-South cooperation, the country’s Coordinating Minister of Maritime and Investment Affairs, Lihut Binsar Panjaitan said on Tuesday after paying a courtesy call on President Mnangagwa at State House in Harare.

Minister Panjaitan said they had cordial discussions with President Mnangagwa.

“We had a very good discussion with President ED (Mnangagwa) and there are two areas of cooperation that we discussed. Number one is forestry and agriculture and this is a thing about South-South cooperation. Number two is about mining. Indonesia has critical mining, Zimbabwe also,” he said.

The Indonesian Minister said Zimbabwe was among African countries that were endowed with vast mineral resources.

“We would like to see how we can collaborate with those countries and to see how we can share our experiences on the downstream industries because downstream industry helps, basically, to create job opportunities for the people of the country. In Indonesia, we created about a million jobs because of downstream industries on nickel ore, bauxite, tin, palm oil and some others,” he said.