The Sunday Mail
Online Reporter
Zimbabwe intends to reactivate engagements between ZimTrade and Tunisian business representative groups to explore “concrete areas of cooperation”, while efforts to revive the Joint Commission – a platform for diplomatic engagement and cooperation – between Harare and Tunis are already underway, Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Algeria Mr Vusumuzi Ntonga said.
Zimbabwe’s embassy in Algeria also covers the Maghreb region, which includes Tunisia.
In an interview on Tuesday, Ambassador Ntonga said there are Tunisian companies such as the Groupe Loukil that are currently scouting for investment opportunities in infrastructure development and food processing.
“Zimbabwe has a broad framework agreement of cooperation with Tunisia, which was signed in 1984, and subsequently facilitated the establishment of a Joint Commission, and that Joint Commission has met twice to identify possible areas of cooperation,” he said.
“Thereafter, we signed an agreement for the avoidance of double taxation that facilitate for investment between our two countries. And we have already been in touch with some companies here that are looking at possible areas of cooperation, interested in infrastructure development and in food processing in agriculture. It is a big group (Groupe Loukil) that is also into car assembly, so those are some of the areas there are looking at to invest.”
A framework for investments between Harare and Tunis already exists, as ZimTrade has an agreement with the Tunisian trade development body, while the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) has long been cooperating with their counterparts, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Tunis.
“We would want to reactivate those meetings between ZimTrade and the business bodies so that they can now look at concrete areas of cooperation. We also have an agreement on a preferential trade area, which was signed in 1990, but obviously now it has probably been overtaken by events because both Zimbabwe and Tunisia are members of Comesa, so they are already in a free trade area, which is a good framework for trade exchanges, as well as investment,” added Amb Ntonga.
Zimbabwe is also looking at the possibility of signing a tourism agreement, as the sector is a major part of the Tunisian economy, with the services sector contributing 68 percent to their gross domestic product (GDP).
“They are also very strong in ICT. So those are some of the areas we can look at in terms of cooperation between our two countries … They receive up to 10 million visitors, two million of whom are from their neighbour, Algeria. We can exchange ideas and experiences in terms of tourism promotion and tourism development just to improve our product and our marketing.”
Since 1980, the country enjoys sound relations with Tunisia at both bilateral and multilateral level.
