Zim intensifies re-engagement efforts
President Mnangagwa has dispatched two special envoys to the Netherlands and Germany as Harare intensifies its re-engagement agenda, a Cabinet Minister has said.
The emphasis on re-engagement has been met with goodwill as the global community has shown eagerness to mend relations with Zimbabwe which soured due to differences over the expropriation of prime agricultural land from the minority whites for re-distribution of land to the black majority.
The differences led to, among other things, a massive decline in foreign direct investment from those countries opposed to the land reform programme.
But in a show of confidence in the new administration, most Western countries including Britain, have sent envoys to Zimbabwe to rekindle the long lost relationship.
Zimbabwe has also re-applied to rejoin the Commonwealth grouping, having withdrawn its membership as tensions heightened.
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Lieutenant General Sibusiso Moyo (Rtd) told Zimbabwean media on the margins of the African Union mid-term summit here that he would be travelling to Netherlands while Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa had been dispatched to Germany.
“Things are moving, the re-engagement process is moving fast.
“The re-engagement target is a moving target as far as we are concerned, it cannot be stopped,” he said.
“Just after this AU conference I am proceeding to the Netherlands specifically as a special envoy.
“As I go there we are hoping that I will address a business forum of Dutch business community and I also hope to have an opportunity to address Zimbabweans based in Netherlands.”
Lt Gen Moyo (Rtd) said the re-engagement agenda was bearing fruits.
“We are pushing and all that we can wait for is the harvest of our re-engagement,” he said.
Moyo has also visited several other countries in Europe in pursuance of the re-engagement agenda.
Recently he was in England and Belgium where he met those countries’s top political leaders who all pledged their support for the new administration in Zimbabwe. — New Ziana.
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