PARLIAMENT yesterday approved a Preferential Trade Agreement signed between Zimbabwe and Mozambique that is aimed at boosting trade between the two countries.
The agreement will enhance the competitiveness of Zimbabwean products on the Mozambican market, relative to products from other third party countries, through the removal of import duties on qualifying products.
Products that are covered under the trade agreement include agricultural, forestry, mineral, fish and animal products.
The Deputy Minister of Industry and International Trade, Cde Kenneth Manyonda, told the House that the agreement provided for the elimination of all existing forms of non-tariff barriers and prohibits the contracting parties from imposing such non-tariff barriers.
He said this while moving a motion for the approval of the trade agreement.
The agreement, Mr Manyonda said, was further buttressed by the attendant memorandum of understanding between the two countries' respective customs administration on the implementation of the trade agreement that provided for measures to deal with problems that may ensue in the process.
"The Preferential Trade Agreement is particularly important and useful for promoting bilateral trade between Zimbabwe and Mozambique in view of the fact that Mozambique moved out of the Common Market for East and Southern Africa in 1997 (Comesa)," he said.
The deputy minister said Zimbabwe was poised to benefit more from the bilateral trade agreement, with respect to manufactured exports because it had a more developed and diversified industrial base .
The agreement, Cde Manyonda said, broadened the export bases for both countries through conferring wholly originating status to products manufactured from scarp and waste materials resulting from manufacturing operations.
Contributing to the debate on the trade agreement, Kambuzuma MP Mr Willias Madzimure (MDC) said although the trade terms between Zimbabwe and Moza-mbique were favourable, there was need for Government to take stock whether such agreements were bearing fruit in the long term. He said Zimbabwe invested a lot in terms of financial and human resources in Mozambique during the civil war but when it came to investment it was other countries such as South Africa which quickly moved in to position themselves.
The legislator said the same situation obtained in the Democratic Republic of Congo where Zimbabwe also invested resources in assisting the government to repel rebels that were backed by Uganda and Rwanda.
Mr Madzimure said there was no meaningful investment by Zimbabwean businessmen in DRC despite the fact that the two countries had a trade agreement.
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