Zimbabwe Trade receives 98k euro ICT gadgets
THE country’s trade development and promotion agency, ZimTrade, has received over 98 000 euro worth of Information Communication Technology gadgets from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).
The equipment includes laptops, tablets, servers and other accessories. In a statement, Comesa said the equipment would enable ZimTrade to improve statistics that assist local businesses to develop, facilitate and promote exports.
“Comesa has supported the Zimbabwe national trade development and promotion organisation (ZimTrade) with over Euro 98 000 worth of equipment, trainings and technical interventions,” it said.
The gadgets were recently handed over to ZimTrade director of operations, Mr Similo Nkala, by Comesa project manager, Mr Fambaoga Myambo. The support comes under the Regional Integration Implementation Programme (RIIP II) under Comesa Adjustment Facility through Regional Integration Support Mechanism funded by the European Union.
Mr Nkala was quoted as saying: “We used to have a lot of challenges in gathering statistics that informs trade decisions by the various sector players, but now this equipment will help us generate accurate and timely statistics for business decisions.”
By working closely with other partners, industry experts and development cooperation partners, Mr Nkala said ZimTrade provides a comprehensive suite of value-added services that is aimed at enhancing the quality of products and services by the country.
Meanwhile, the Cotton Research Institute based in Kadoma, Mashonaland West has started developing new cotton varieties after a long time. This follows the procurement of a Cotton Fibre High Value Instrument (HVI) at a total cost of 105 000 euro through the Comesa RIIP I project.
The HVI is a computer aided instrument that tests different fibre quality parameters of cotton. It also informs both cotton seed varieties and the final lint quality produced in the cotton industry.
The head of the research institute, Mr Washington Mubvekeri, told a monitoring mission by the COMAid team recently that the support by Comesa helped revive the activities of theinstitutethat had stopped due to poor equipment.
“As we speak now, we have released two new seed varieties on the market and we are expecting to release two more varieties by 2022 and by the year 2024 we should be able to release four more new varieties,” he said.
With the existing equipment, the research centre is expected to accommodate more farmers from the prevailing 300 000 to way over 400 000 to use the facility for testing the cotton in the coming year.
COMAid coordinator, Mrs Hope Situmbeko, commended the efforts of the institute which she noted, will contribute to the Comesa regional integration objectives, focusing on cotton to clothing value chain. — The Chronicle
