Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Friday that burgeoning economic ties with Asian countries are paying off for the country shunned by its former trading allies in the West.
”I am pleased to report that significant headway has been made with a number of investment projects that have been funded by China now at various stages of implementation in all the key sectors of our economy,” Mugabe said in a keynote address at the annual Zimbabwe International Trade Fair.
”Beside our trading partners in the Southern African Development Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, countries of Asia are becoming very important partners in trade and investment issues because of our Look East policy.
”Indeed, Zimbabwe has been able to broaden her economic horizon by embarking on various joint cooperation projects.”
He acknowledged the country is saddled with economic woes, blaming the problems on ”declared and undeclared sanctions by Western countries”.
Mugabe adopted the ”Look East” policy nearly four years ago after Zimbabwe’s trading partners turned their backs on the country following presidential elections in 2002 that the opposition and Western observers said were rigged to hand Mugabe victory.
Mugabe called for ”a strong and genuine partnership” between his government and business to overcome the country’s economic woes. ”One that is synergistic and collaborative rather than adversarial and confrontational.”
Zimbabwe’s economy has been on a downturn over the past seven years with world-record inflation now at 2 200%, four in every five people without a job and the majority of the population living below the poverty threshold.
Poor families resort to skipping meals, foregoing ingredients such as milk and margarine, and walking long distances to work in order to stretch their wages to the next pay day.
Critics blame the deterioration on controversial land reforms that saw the government seizing farms from white commercial farmers to resettle landless blacks.
But government officials say the economic woes are the results of targeted sanctions imposed on Mugabe and members of his inner circle by the European Union and the United States following the presidential elections in 2002. — Sapa-AFP