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Golden Sibanda recently Dubai, UAE

ZIMBABWEAN firms and individual entrepreneurs must aggregate their horticultural produce to meet the large volumes required by the Dubai market, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Expo 2020 Dubai Commissioner General Ambassador Mary Mubi has said.

Ambassador Mubi said this at the weekend while addressing a group of Zimbabwean women entrepreneurs, under the banner of empowerment group, the Red Lipstick Revolution, who are in Dubai to appreciate opportunities at Expo 2020 Dubai and what the rest of the Gulf region has to offer.

Zimbabwe is exhibiting the wide range of trade and investment opportunities in the country across the various key sectors and is also using the platform to engage, re-engage and reconstruct the narrative about Zimbabwe to a positive one since the new dispensation took over as well as present to the world the country’s vision. 

Expo 2020 Dubai kicked off on October 1, 2021 and runs until March 31, 2022 under the theme “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”. Its purpose is to provide a platform for the global community to share innovations and debate key issues facing the world.

Ambassador Mubi told the women gathered at a hotel in the UAE, including some who came as far as the United Kingdom, that Expo 2020 Dubai, which is the 68th edition, offered a rare chance for the entrepreneurs to connect what they can do at home and opportunities at the expo.

“It is expected that the expo will bring millions of visitors to the UAE to showcase innovations, ideas, collaborations and celebrate human creativity,” she said. Notably, the expo will have three sub themes namely Opportunity, Mobility and Sustainability.

Organisers expect over 25 million visitors to arrive in Dubai during the period of the expo where a total of 192 countries are taking part. 

The expo is also expected to create pillars for companies, countries and industries to amplify their working spaces and productions. 

At country level, she said the challenges also required coordination and mobilisation of women and youths to take part in finding solutions to global issues.

Ambassador Mubi made the remarks while commenting on the various clusters in terms of which Zimbabwe`s exhibition is organised at the expo namely history and heritage, opportunities for investors, people and human skills as well as the country’ vision for the future (Vision 2030).

“I am glad that as women, you have come together. We sometimes need to come together, there are some projects we cannot do as (individuals).  

“My last posting (as country ambassador) was in Italy, they have small farms, they may decide to grow a variety of grapes, but they harvest together so that they get the necessary economies of scale.  

“This market, in terms of horticulture . . . the amount they require in terms of horticulture is enormous, you cannot do it as individuals.

“But you can decide to do peas or strawberries (and) if you decide to aggregate to market your products then (you become) a serious player, but if you are only producing 100 packets (as an individual producer) nobody will talk to you,” she said.

Earlier, one of Dubai’s biggest horticultural companies Ali Gholami told a delegation led by Vice President Constantino Chiwenga that it had told a firm in Zimbabwe, which exports berries to Dubai, that it could buy up to two full containers of pineapples every week.  

However, the request has not materialised amid revelations that the company did not have the capacity to supply the requisite tonnage.  

“(And with large volumes) you are even able to negotiate for better prices for your fertiliser if you aggregate, so the Vision (2030) must also be about how we empower ourselves, how we organise ourselves in order to meet (requirements) of this particular market,” she said. 

Ambassador Mubi, explaining how Zimbabwe’s handicrafts were being marketed at the expo, said it was critical for Zimbabwean entrepreneurs to create networks amongst themselves and others globally in order to gather information critical for marketing products.

Through Expo 2020, Zimbabwe is seeking to promote its national brand and the various opportunities in the country as well as drive the engagement and re-engagement agenda. The engagement and re-engagement agenda, she said, were not just at Government level, but “also people to people”.

“It is also about the networks that you create yourselves, and it is a responsibility for everybody to re-engage, it is not just about the Government.

“It is about everybody, because for every Government official at the airport in Harare, there probably are 100 people going in different sectors, from business, churches, you are creating networks,” she said.

At Expo 2020 Dubai, Zimbabwe is looking to promote trade and investment in key sectors like mining, agriculture and manufacturing and attract more visitors to Zimbabwe, to clarify Zimbabwe’s policies and programmes through unified and simplified message, and explore source markets.

“Just look through the (Dubai) supermarkets to see what we are growing at home and at what price it is landing. Already, it is giving you information. 

“(Zimbabwe is also seeking) opportunities for technology transfer, tourism investment and human capacity development.” 

Further, she said the country’s participation sought to transform the previously negative image of the country. Ambassador Mubi pointed out that some of the most damaging reports on the country were from Zimbabweans who took every opportunity to speak ill of the country.

In order to realise the expo’s objectives, she said the country needed to have a clear message and strategy as well as clear understanding of the market. 

“It is not sufficient just to come to Dubai (for the expo), we really need to be strategic in terms of what it is that this space offers,” Ambassador Mubi said.

Commander-in-chief of the Red Lipstick Revolution, Dr Abigail Magwenzi, said her organisation existed to galvanise women to rise above every situation or negative environment they may find themselves in.

“We answered the call by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and also by the President to go to the expo that is taking place here in Dubai.

“So we came here under our brand ‘Zim Women Do Dubai’ because we also felt that Dubai is a strategic place and that it is a miracle in the desert in that they have done things that defy logic.

“We are all rushing here to the sand, what are we doing in the sand? It is the power of vision, in Zimbabwe we have vision 2030 and we are saying that as women we do not want to be left behind, we want to be a part of it.

“So, we engaged the (Expo 2020 Dubai) commissioner general, who is our representative here at the expo and she is preparing us for being able to get the most out of Expo Dubai 2020.

“We have had this one-day strategic workshop for an action plan that we are coming up with so that we can now visit the expo and be able to interact for maximum impact.

“We have women from the Diaspora, we have got women that have come from Zimbabwe. We came to meet here to deliberate on a one-day business indaba

“I have been around in this industry (cross border trading) for a long time and I am getting tired, I am getting older and we are saying now enough is enough (wasting time on) just the talk, it is time to take action,” she said.

Dr Magwenzi, who has been working with women since 2016, said the meeting in Dubai was to prepare the women from all backgrounds for a specific exhibition that will take place at the expo in February next year focusing on opportunities for women. 

She said it was time for all women in the Diaspora and at home to come together and have a strategic plan on how to seize opportunities in Dubai.

Already, the women under the Red Lipstick Revolution are working on a project for the production of a special variety of sweet potatoes, which they intend to export to Dubai.

Dr Magwenzi, whose Red Lipstick Revolution movement has between 20 000 and 30 000 followers, said they would hold meetings with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and all potential customers to gather all the key information and requirements for sweet potato exports.