Zambia buyers keen to engage Zimbabwe companies
The national trade promotion and development organisation ZimTrade has said local companies that exhibited at the Zambia Agricultural and Commercial Show attracted interest from Zambian buyers who are eager to import an assortment of local products.
Zambia buyers showed interest in agriculture products, protective clothing, furniture and the services sector.
A total of 25 local companies participated in the 95th edition of the trade show held under the theme, “Inclusive Economic Transformation”.
The exhibition ended yesterday.
The five-day ZACS is a multi-sectoral trade fair that showcases different products and services such as agricultural machinery and implements, processed foods, livestock, horticulture and financial services.
The participation of Zimbabwean companies at the trade fair feeds into the wider economic diplomacy agenda being implemented by the Second Republic to unlock economic benefits from the country’s good foreign relations.
ZimTrade communications manager, Mr Danai Majaha said the facilitation of local companies at the Zambia fair was meant to create partnerships that will sustain export growth that has been recorded by Zimbabwe in the past few years.
“The buyers are very happy and they are keen to engage Zimbabwean companies and as we move forward, the task is to create opportunities for more companies so that we have more products in the market taking advantage of the products which are already doing very well.
“In terms of the outcome we are happy because the companies that we helped to exhibit at the show managed to engage and and some have already clinched deals. The general comments which were coming from participants was that Zimbabwean companies had high quality products that can compete on the market,” he said.
Mr Majaha said buyers were happy with an assortment of processed food products, protective clothing, agriculture inputs and implements, furniture and the services sector.
Zimbabwe’s exports to Zambia have grown by 54 percent from US$58 million in 2017 to over US$90 million in 2022.
Mr Majaha said this strong performance can be attributed to the physical presence of Zimbabwean brands at various export promotion events in
Zambia, including ZACS and several outward seller missions facilitated and organised by ZimTrade.
In a bid to diversify and grow exports regionally and internationally leveraging on the country’s economic diplomacy, ZimTrade is conducting market surveys in different counties regionally and internationally.
Recently, the organisation revealed that they are scanning for the potential market for Zimbabwean horticulture products and furniture in Qatar. — @SikhulekelaniM1
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