Story by Abigirl Tembo
ZIMBABWE’S economic charm offensive at the just ended India-Africa Business Conclave is already sparking strong interest from Indian industrial giants and investors across key sectors.
Zimbabwe’s pitch to Indian investors is paying off, with companies lining up to explore opportunities in mining, agriculture, energy, and health. After a series of high-level talks in New Delhi, several industry leaders revealed their plans to invest, citing Zimbabwe’s strategic location and untapped potential.
“I was heading a delegation specifically on the sector of health tourism and mining. So we had very fruitful discussions. We’ve identified areas where we could set up a small manufacturing facility for IV fluids, medicines, as well as a hospital chain which has come specially to evaluate, to set up an oncology facility in Zimbabwe. The most important part on the hospitality is that we are going to contemplate looking for a facility set up at Victoria Falls which is going to be creation of a conference facility along with the specific number of rooms which we still need to define so that the occupancy rate is proper. The discussions were extremely fruitful and the Honourable was very very cordial and along with his team of delegation, the ministers and the trade representatives, they have offered us full help and support to establish these businesses,” said Rare Tech Projects managing director, Dr Sandeep Chadha.
Institute for Competitiveness chairperson Dr Amit Kapoor weighed in, “I had a great interaction with His Excellency wherein we discussed in terms of the potential that Zimbabwe has as an economic development professional who has written the Competitiveness Roadmap for India. I feel the potential within Zimbabwe is amazing from a mining perspective, tourism, health care, etc. And this is exactly what was echoed by His Excellency. Because if you really work through the roadmap, the potential for Zimbabwe stays hugely high. You know, like Zimbabwe from an economic potential, I think one of the biggest things that’s going to really make it click is tourism. Because if you really look at an area like, say, Victoria Falls, I’ve been reading about it. Is that it could be just one of the most stunning places in the world in terms of attracting people and Honourable His Excellency made a very interesting remark that if there are people who can get to come home, which was close to about 660 million people who came to one single festival. Why is it that we can’t really attract people to a place like Victoria Falls? So that could be just one of those great places to visit. And then, of course, discussing the potential of, say, creating hotels, the whole tourism cluster, the mining cluster.”
Platinum Crest Agri ventures director, Mr Nitin Kadam also said, “So basically the proposal is to have an integrated sugar complex in Zimbabwe and make Zimbabwe a sugar surplus nation. That’s the most important thing. In the sugar complex we’ll be also having ethanol facility, production facility, by-products, production spirits as well as, you know, bagasse co-generation facilities as well as. Be it also. solar powers. We are also trying to you know get expanded thing like from 3,500 to 10,000 TDC of sugarcane production. The second is about integrating the farmers. Basically in this project so what we are going to do is we are also launching a sugarcane research facility having scientists from India so wherein we have the technology transfer basically to this particular institute and this would be empowering the farmers out in Mumbai to produce the best quality of sugar to having the maximum yield of tonnage per sugar per hectare so according to Indian standard it’s not even half of what we produce here so we want to produce twice or thrice the produce what we do it here you know likewise the same as India new variety research new variety and technical soil therapy ”
From fertiliser plants to integrated sugar complexes, Indian investors are seeing Zimbabwe not just as a market, but as a production base for Southern Africa as explained by Jindal steel and power chairman, Mr Naveen Jindal.
“The Jindal Group has plans to operate power plants in Zimbabwe and to look at some other opportunities and the Vice President’s message was very clear that he wants that once Jindal is operating there, the kind of social and work for the community that we are doing in India, if we can do similar things in Zimbabwe also. And he said that real work is when the companies, they also understand the social, the corporate responsibilities and the corporate social responsibilities and also work for the communities. And we have assured him that yes, Jindal will always like to involve the community.”
Ostwal Group India managing director Mr Pankaj Ostwal also spoke on the investment opportunities available in Zimbabwe, particularly in Zimbabwe.
“We met the Honourable Vice President of Zimbabwe here in India, and we discussed about the fertilizer situation in your country, in Zimbabwe. We have come across the quantity of fertilizers being used by the farmers. We have discussed about the agriculture crops which are being grown in the country, and we propose to put up fertilizer manufacturing plant with backward integration of rock phosphate beneficiation plant and sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid. We are very positive on putting up the manufacturing facility in Zimbabwe.
“The Honourable Vice President has shown a great confidence in us to put up the manufacturing. And he has invited us to Zimbabwe to explore the possibility of putting up the fertilizer plants in the country. We are confident that we can put up the manufacturing facility as we are already the leading manufacturers of fertilizers in the country. We have approximately 2 million capacity of fertiliser capacity.”
From boardrooms to beneficiation plants, India’s interest in Zimbabwe is rapidly turning into concrete investment plans setting the stage for a new era of trade, technology transfer, and industrial growth between the two nations.
