The Sunday Mail
Ambassador Chris Mutsvangwa
His Excellency, President Emmerson D. Mnangagwa undertook a three-day state visit to meet his counterpart, President Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique from April 3 to 6.
The trip saw, bilateral relations between the two countries being elevated from a Joint Permanent Commission to a much closer and tighter Bi-National Commission.
Coming out of the discussions between the two sister republics was an initiative of the strategic economic development of the two states.
The focus was on port, rail, road and telecommunications logistics.
A restoration of shorter access to global markets entails investing in new ports that can berth all the way to the Panamex 200 000 tonne seagoing vessels.
Harare has a veritable trove of billions of tonnes of iron ore deposits especially at the Mvuma-Chivhu-Manhize new steel plant site.
Within proximity are embedded the world-class ferrochrome resource of the 600 km Great Dyke.
Throw in the high caloric value coking coal seams at nearby Hwange collieries and this completes a metallurgical mix.
The output is the potential for the lowest cost production of carbon steel to challenge existing players and vault Zimbabwe to top echelons.
This tantalising metallurgical mix caught the attention of “Big Shot” Xiang Guangda, chairman of Tsingshan Holdings Group on his maiden visit to Zimbabwe in September 2013.
He struck a personal relationship with then Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Serendipity would solidify the bonds between the two men when the latter ended up as President of the Second Republic in 2017.
The propitious occasion came with the State Visit to China in 2018.
Both men met in Hangzhou.
The outcome was amplified ferrochrome investment as well as expansion into coking coal production.
Today, Zimbabwe’s high-quality metallurgical coke is displacing the competing Chinese coke imports in the sub-regional markets of South Africa, Zambia and DR Congo.
Tsingshan Holdings Group is ranked number 279 among the global Fortune 500 enterprises.
It has huge upside ambition to hoist Zimbabwe to global heights in carbon steel production.
The template reading is Tsingshan Steel and Indonesia.
Djakarta has teamed up with Tsingshan Steel to notch up second position in stainless steel production, overtaking both India and Japan to land just behind mainland China, the global market leader.
These ambitions of a global class stainless steel ecosystem, have triggered an equal match for commensurate electricity energy demand.
Mozambique is offering unparalleled opportunities of electricity generation.
The natural gas deposits of Cabo Delgado place Maputo as a potential competitor to both Moscow and Qatar as leading global suppliers.
More pertinent to Zimbabwe are the smaller scale gas deposits by the confluence of Pungwe and Buzi rivers in Sofala.
These are placed at fit to size market nearby Zimbabwe.
They are even closer to the destination market than the Temane Thermal Power Station.
More potent engagement was in the domain of energy cooperation.
Mozambique is well endowed with world class natural gas deposits.
Hitherto, South Africa’s SASOL has been the sole natural gas player in the Mozambique natural gas sector with an 800km pipeline to Secunda in Mpumalanga Province.
Beyond natural gas energy, there is hydroelectric potential on the lower reaches of the mighty Zambezi River.
Again from the apartheid epoch, South Africa has been the sole beneficiary of the abundant, cheap and green or clean hydroelectricity power from the Cobora Basa dam.
With COP26 and the global fight against climate change, there is renewed interest in Mpanda Nkuwa and two other gorges downstream before the Zambezi river empties into the Indian Ocean.
The Tsingshan Steel Plant under construction at Mvuma-Chivhu-Manhize is offering the prospect of being a major anchor energy customer.
Both Mozambique and Zimbabwe are lucky enough to be complementary partners in the batteries new energy electric vehicle sector.
Lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite are the favoured metals of this sector.
Zimbabwe is stirring waves in global lithium investments.
Record-breaking acquisitions have been realised for Arcadia Lithium, the new Buhera deposits and the historical Bikita lithium.
More prospecting is going on as Zimbabwe seeks a coveted role with a fifth rank in global lithium deposits.
The Lynx Mine in Karoi, Zimbabwe and Montepeuz in Mozambique are both globally renowned graphite mines.
Sixty percent of the world’s cobalt originates from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It passes through both Mozambique and Zimbabwe enroute to new energy battery manufacturers in China, South Korea, Japan and USA.
There is active interest to have Maputo and Zimbabwe become investment destinations for new energy batteries for the burgeoning new energy electric vehicles.
Beyond hydro electricity, natural gas and lithium ion, there is abundant solar for photovoltaic panels, ocean tides and wind for turbines.
Both countries also share the reliable, though unwanted, traditional thermal coal of the Zambezi fault running from Hwange in Zimbabwe to Moatize in Mozambique.
It is evident that this replete energy portfolio was at the centre of the exchanges of the two Heads of State during the state visit.
Maputo and Harare are basking in the nexus of much-coveted mineral resources, cheap energy potential and exploding global demand as electric vehicles enter the vogue.
What was once pejoratively regarded as a resource curse meant to benefit the extractive mineral markets beyond Africa is rapidly converting to a potential if actual mineral beneficiation bonanza.
There is the added boon of competing investors as global capital diversify beyond the traditional western players.
Newly emergent players are equally jousting if not eclipsing historical investors.
This geopolitical element lies at the heart of renewed volleying of hostile propaganda against Zimbabwe.
A coterie of cohorts who have assiduously demonised Zimbabwe for the last two decades are clearly unnerved by the prospect of the sister republics of Zimbabwe and Mozambique finally being on the cusp of huge development opportunities.
There has been a concerted and relentless drive to deny symbiotic benefits of freedom and independence to Maputo and Harare.
Instead, there was callous inducement of artificial and highly inflationary dependence to post-apartheid South Africa as the bastion of often malign capital originating from the West.
The fiendish agenda ranged from sponsoring of terror proxies like RENAMO and Muslim extremists sanctions and crude denial of foreign direct investment.
All that is giving in to refreshing gusts of new investment initiatives by more intrepid entrepreneurs.
It is noteworthy that the advent of majority rule governance is reversing the beggar thy neighbour mercantile policies of sabotage that were the hallmark of the heyday of racist, apartheid minority regimes of yesteryear.
But the beleaguered forces of darkness are not ready to throw in the towel.
Instead, they are prone to hatch ever malicious manoeuvres as they defy the signs of the times.
They have since resorted to xenophobia and openly fomenting heinous crimes.
The sizable socio-political refugee community of the sanctions-induced economic meltdown in Zimbabwe are particular targets.
Those who passed ZDERA sanctions as an instrument of regime change are jaded by the rising economic prospects of Zimbabwe.
As they sulk their desperation turns to the egregious.
They resort to extremes as they fight for global attention and court outrage in competition to mayhem of war in Ukraine.
Poor Elvis Nyathi is the latest victim of the pro-West, white racist sponsored vigilantes.
These are vigilante groups owe their DNA to the nefarious agendas of unrepentant white racism of the days of western empires rampaging in Africa.
The noble pursuit of post-war reconciliation spared the dark hands of shadowy and false flag operatives from facing restorative justice.
Riding on this impunity they partake to the exploits of the past that were attached to Selous Scouts, Koevoet, Bureau of State Security and Civil Cooperation Bureau.
It is pathetic appalling and damning for compromised and sponsored pro-West opposition parties to associate with such retrograde and heinous conduct.
Instead of mustering the courage to unequivocally condemn xenophobic acts, they find excuses, obfuscation and rationalisation.
All they end up doing is to exhibit sponsored and undying enmity to the progressive national liberation movement.
They do not miss a chance at waving ingratitude to issue of the democratic freedoms they are prone to abuse.
ZANU PF of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Second Republic will remain resolute in the pursuit of the economic agenda that offers prospects of prosperity to the totality of the population of Zimbabwe.
He is determined to nurture a business class that thrives within our frontiers.
That way young people will need not jump borders or fly out to foreign jurisdictions to seek employment and sustenance.
This approach is belied by the mantra: Zimbabwe Is Open For Business. The coalescing cooperation between Mozambique and Zimbabwe is but one major step poised to pay out rich dividends. Zimbabwe will soon be celebrating Independence Day.
This time Bulawayo will be host.
The first time ever outside of Harare.
His Excellency has used the first such opportunity since we won a measure of respite from Covid-19 ravages.
He is living to his promise on devolution and national inclusivity.
Our history of painful sacrifice, steely resolve, tight organisation, focus and discipline is delivering the prosperity we have long yearned for.
