The Sunday Mail
FOR the past 26 days Zimbabwe has piqued the curiosity of the world by cavorting with two of the globe’s most powerful forces — China and Russia — that are challenging both the political and economic architecture of the world.
Late last month, Zimbabwe and China, which has evolved as the world’s second biggest economy and is fast closing in on the United States of America, itself the supposed overlord of the current unipolar hegemony, signed multi-million-dollar deals that are likely to have a material impact on the local economy.
Also, symbolically, last week Russia’s foreign minister Mr Sergei Lavrov was in Harare to launch the US$3 billion platinum project in the mineral-rich Darwendale.
Fittingly, Mr Lavrov described Africa, Zimbabwe included, as one of the key pillars of an evolving world system.
“We are all convinced that these unilateral coercive policies have no future . . . What is important these days is to recognise the pluralism in the international community.
“There is no coming back to a unipolar world, to a bi-polar world. The future of the world would only be multiple, otherwise the whole system would not be sustainable,” said Mr Lavrov.
While Moscow seems to be challenging more the political hegemony of the USA, Beijing seems to be chewing away at Washington’s markets.
The evolving alliance of emerging world powers and emerging economies provides scope for fledgling economies such as Zimbabwe to stand on the shoulders of these giants.
But there is an urgent need to unlearn a serious handicap in Harare, particularly from local businesses, where it seems, most stakeholders are asking what China and Russia can do for us and not what the country can do for China and Russia.
Rather than seeing the opportunities that we can provide for these key world economies, we also need to interrogate what opportunities are provided to us.
Rather than looking for inward investment only, we also need to look at outward investment.
We need not only look at China and Russia as investors, but we also need to look at ourselves as investors.
A different profiling of our investment partners is desperately needed.
Deepening economic relations between Zimbabwe, on the one hand, and China on the other hand, literally opens the door for local businesses — big and small.
With a combined market of 1,5 billion people, Russia and China provide a huge, untapped market. It is, however, naïve to think that Zimbabwe can compete with global suppliers to provide industrial goods to either China and Russia.
Most local companies neither have the technology nor the financial stamina to fend off competition from other industrial goods suppliers.
But, traditionally, Zimbabwe always had the advantage of being a competent producer of fresh fruit produce and related products.
And, as a strict producer of pure agricultural commodities — produce that is not genetically modified (GM) — the country stands in good stead to ship these products to destinations where anti-GMO activism continues to rise.
However, the distance from Harare to Moscow, located in North Eurasia, is 8 206 kilometres; and the distance from Harare to Beijing, which is 10 888 kilometres, presents a challenge.
A challenge, nonetheless, that can be overcome.
Zimbabwe, through the obstinate position of the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Joseph Made, maintains an indefinite ban on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), products whose genetic make-up has been re-engineered to ensure a pest and disease-resistant crop.
There is still enduring global suspicion that GMOs, which are a product of capitalism’s greedy quest for profits, cause health complications such as cancer, but this has not been scientifically proven as yet.
Such fears have naturally spurred the demand for organic food and food products.
Considering that organic foods are 20 percent pricier than GMOs, there is scope for Zimbabwe to leverage on such foods to curve a niche on the global marketplace.
Russia, which recently imposed an embargo on food imports such as processed meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts and dairy products from the West, provides a ready market for similar goods.
Trade experts say Russia remains heavily dependent on agriculture and food from abroad. In fact, it is believed that food imports account for an estimated 14,5 percent of all Russian imports.
In 2013, Russia imported goods worth US$43 billion. So, a market definitely exists; more so for organic foods and fresh fruit produce.
Russia itself is divided on how it will shape future policies on GMOs.
Even though the country banned the GMO products a few months ago, it is still planning to allow Russian farmers to cultivate and sell GMOs through Decree 839 that was supposed to come into effect on July 1 this year.
The decree has been pushed back by three years. Still such a move, when it happens, presents future opportunities.
Independent estimates suggest that 80 percent of Russians are anti-GMOs.
Debate is also raging in China on the production and consumption of GMOs.
Its key institutions are also still at loggerheads. But South Africa has a liberal policy towards these controversial food crops.
The Genetically Modified Organisms Act, where various permits for general releases, field trials, contained use and commodity imports for human and animal consumption were granted, came into effect on December 1 1999.
Consumer sentiment is now changing.
Last week, Woolworths South Africa announced plans to reduce the amount of foods containing genetically modified (GM) ingredients at its stores by 50 percent over the next year.
Instructively Woolworths MD for Foods Zyda Rylands indicated that finding suppliers who provide competitively priced non-GM foods has become increasingly difficult since GM crops were introduced in South Africa in 1998.
Zimbabwe, as an outpost of organic foods, is therefore unique.
The challenge lies in improving output from farmers, enhancing the packing and marketing of fresh produce (including its preservation) and effectively labelling and marketing it to the global market.
There are volumes and volumes of works on spatial development initiatives and models on developing Special Economic Zones that are gathering dust in both the public and private sector that now need to be put to use.
Tomato and vegetable farmers in Mutoko and Chihota need to unlock value from their produce.
Government’s intervention is needed to ensure that at least the farmers have a well-paying market – either local or international – to sell their products.
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