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Ishemunyoro Chingwere

Zimbabwe seeks to tap into India’s envisaged economic boom as espoused by the South Asian economic powerhouse’s Vision 2025 through which it is envisioning a US$5 trillion economy.

The current size of the Indian economy is estimated at about US$2,7 trillion.

India’s vision is underpinned on a boom in, among other key sectors, construction and jewellery and Zimbabwe could take advantage of this through the supply of steel from chrome and jewellery from its vast potential in diamond and gold mining.

Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister, Polite Kambamura, who attended an International Chrome Development Association conference in New Dehli India last week, revealed Zimbabwe’s plans. 

Deputy Minister Kambamura said there were a lot of benefits for Zimbabwe from India’s envisaged growth as some of the inputs that the South Asian country would want are mined in Zimbabwe.

The All India Gem and Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC) — which superintends over the jewellery industry in that country — has set itself a target to grow the gem and jewellery business by 33 percent from the current US$75 billion to US$100 billion by 2025.

Zimbabwe can take advantage of India’s targets to push the 2023 US$12 billion mining industry milestone through which Government has earmarked gold production to grow from just over 33 tonnes in 2018 to 100 tonnes in 2023.

Zimbabwe’s 2023 mining sector milestone has also set its diamond production figures to top 11 million carats in 2023 up from just over 3,2 million achieved in 2017.

“The conference was basically about the chrome industry and how players can help grow it,” Deputy Minister Kambamura told this publication yesterday.

“But the most important thing for us as a country is that it was in India, and it gave chrome producers an opportunity to interact with the market. As you know, India is one of the biggest global markets for chrome and chromium products.

“They (Indians) are targeting to grow their economy and are pursuing what they have named ‘Vision 2025’ by which year they are targeting a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of US$5 trillion. So for us, it becomes apparent that this is a market ready to be explored.

“More so, they also provide lessons for us in our quest to achieve Vision 2030 by which we should attain upper middle-income earning status as laid out by His Excellency (President Mnangagwa).

“So we have to take full advantage of their needs, including for jewellery and look for markets for our diamonds and gold,” he said.

Deputy Minister Kambamura said other key strategies that India is pushing and for which Zimbabwe’s chrome and chromium sector could come in handy through steel production which is a key component in engineering works, include the building of 600 new or upgraded railway stations, 10 000km of new high-speed railway as well as build and or upgrade 400 airports.

“There is an obvious construction boom on the horizon in India and Zimbabwe should partake in that (through chrome and chromium products),” said the Deputy Minister.