Zimpapers Logo

Mukudzei Chingwere-Herald Reporter

Just a week after election into the 15-member African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council, Zimbabwe has started international engagements on the maintenance of international peace and security.

This came out after Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Ambassador Frederick Shava met Algerian Ambassador to Zimbabwe Nourredine Yazid in Harare yesterday.

Minister Shava also met Indonesian Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ambassador Dewa Juniarta Sastrawan with the two diplomats agreeing to lead their countries in enhanced economic co-operation.

Indonesia said it was happy with the quality of tobacco and cotton it was importing from Zimbabwe adding that they were coming up with a proposal to work with the Air Force of Zimbabwe in aircraft maintenance amongst a host of other areas related to trade.

 Zimbabwe is expected to play an active role in promoting peace and security on the continent.

“I had the opportunity to discuss with the Minister many international issues of common interest like western Sahara, Palestine and security council reforms and elections,” said Ambassador Yazid.

“Also we discussed the Non-Aligned Movement and how we can activate it. We also talked about the African Union and the free trade area.

“We talked about the reforms and Algerian candidacy to the security council. We discussed the necessity of the reforms to give Africa the opportunity to be well represented in this important council.”

Ambassador Yazid said they were preparing for the forthcoming joint permanent commission session which will be held in Algiers.

“We discussed a lot of issues regarding Algerian-Zimbabwean corporations mainly in the field of agriculture, industry and training. We believe that we can do a lot of things as the two countries. There is a lot of potential.”

The Indonesian envoy, Ambassador Sastrawan, noted the areas Zimbabwe is doing well such as in the pharmaceuticals and maintenance of aircraft, which they wish to partner.

In the health sector Zimbabwe is being configured towards the attainment of best international practices and the world is beginning to have a keen interest in working with Zimbabwe.

“We agreed to increase sustainable co-0porations, we agreed that we are going to have a meeting of representatives of different fields between the two countries. We are planning to have it in April.

“We are aiming at strengthening cooperation in the pharmaceutical fields, we have Indonesian companies that want to do business here,” said Ambassador Sastrawan.

He noted that the two foreign ministers will engage, opening the way for representatives of different stakeholders to engage.

“We also discussed the possibility of cooperation in solar energy, railway, aviation and roads. There is a lot of potential between the two countries.

“We are happy that Zimbabwe is providing us with good quality tobacco and cotton and we want to improve our trade relations.”

Ambassador Sastrawan said, “we also hope things can materialise for the defence industry, we understand that the Zimbabwe Air Force is using CASA aircraft. We also produce CASA.

“We like to propose here and we are preparing the proposal on how we can support the maintenance of these aircraft in Zimbabwe. In the long term we can work together in the aviation industry,” said the Indonesian envoy.