HARARE — The year 2024 has witnessed significant milestones in China-Zimbabwe cooperation in the agriculture sector, a cornerstone of Zimbabwe’s economy.
Trade between the two sides increased, while China’s support for Zimbabwe’s technical expertise and human resources development in the agriculture sector also expanded.
Grasiano Nyaguse, Minister of the Embassy of Zimbabwe in China, visits the soilless cultivation greenhouse of Guizhou Aerospace Intelligent Agriculture Co. Ltd. in Guiyang, southwest China’s Guizhou province, on June 4, 2024. XINHUA PHOTO
According to the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency, a national investment promotion body, the agriculture sector sustains more than 60 percent of Zimbabwe’s population, provides 63 percent of raw materials for the manufacturing sector, generates 30 percent of export earnings and contributes 15 percent to gross domestic product.
In a bid to further open China’s market to Zimbabwean agricultural products, a trade protocol on the export of Zimbabwean avocados was inked during Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s state visit to China in September, ahead of the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
Rodwell Choto, an avocado farmer from Bindura, Mashonaland Central province, is among those preparing to meet the expected surge in demand from China.
“Exports to China will give us foreign currency, our economy will grow and our livelihoods will improve,” Choto told Xinhua in a recent interview, noting that avocado farmers are ramping up production.
According to the Horticultural Development Council, an organization representing horticultural exporters in Zimbabwe, the Southeast African country is projected to produce a record 6,000 metric tons of avocados in 2024, with its avocado industry set to expand the growing area from the current 1,500 hectares to 4,000 hectares by 2030.
This builds on earlier successes, including a 2022 trade agreement enabling the export of fresh citrus to China, which saw its first shipment in 2023.
“This is a chance for African agriculture now to become part of the global food value chain,” said Christopher Mutsvangwa, politburo member and secretary for information and publicity at the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party.
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