Story by Oleen Ndori, Foreign Desk Editor
THE signed agreements of cooperation between Zimbabwe and Belarus during President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s recent visit to the Eastern Europe nation, are expected to deepen bilateral relations between the two countries.
Last week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa led a Zimbabwean delegation on a four-day return state visit to Belarus after the European country’s President, Alexander Lukashenko visited Zimbabwe in 2023.
During the visit, several Memoranda of Understanding were signed between the two countries in various fields including information, health, agriculture and tourism.
“We have seen increased high-level interactions and expanded cooperation since President Lukashenko’s state visit to Zimbabwe in 2023. You will recall that during that visit we signed the overarching framework of cooperation between Zimbabwe and Belarus to ensure effective follow-up in the implementation of our growing strategic interests across all key sectors.
“We now look forward to taking our bilateral interactions to the next level by leveraging Zimbabwe’s strategic location within southern Africa. The initiative to our opposition Zimbabwe as a regional manufacturing hub for Belarusian products is therefore a welcome development that will strengthen our bilateral trade and support broader regional economic integration in southern Africa. As Zimbabwe pursues its Vision 23rd Agenda, partnerships such as the one we have with the Republic of Belarus are critical in accelerating our industrialisation efforts and maximizing the beneficiation of our rich agricultural and mineral resources,” President Emmerson Mnangagwa said.
The Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Dr Jenfan Muswere says such engagements, particularly in the information sector, will enhance collaborations of mutual interest, revealing that the national broadcaster will also benefit from the Belarus agreements.
“Part of great importance is that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation in the field of Information and Press (that) we signed in Minsk is also to finalise the digitalisation and the transition from analogue to digital, as we seek to ensure that we achieve 100 % media and technological sovereignty for our country.
“Other aspects also include the modernisation of our studios and the rest of the infrastructure in order to ensure that we have got information ubiquity across the country. We are currently working on the modernisation and recapitalisation of a number of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation studios from Pockets to Montrose Studios.
“So, this agreement comes in handy to enhance the collaboration between the Belarusian news agency and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. So these are some of the issues that we discussed and agreed. We have fixed a two-year period as part of the Zimdigital Phase 2 project and we are very confident that this agreement will enhance our capacity as we seek to ensure that we cover the whole country in terms of signal distribution,” he said.
Zimbabwe and Belarus engagements speak to Zimbabwe’s aspirations of attaining an upper middle-income society by 2030, with collaborations under the engagement and re-engagement drive being prioritised.
