Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Zimbabwe, Rwanda Sign Mining Agreement
28 AUG, 2019 - 00:08
 
Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando

Ishemunyoro Chingwere
Business Reporter
Herald

GOVERNMENT, through the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Rwanda that will see the two countries cooperating and exchanging experiences from the extractive industries to develop their respective mining sectors.

Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando signed on behalf of the Government, while Rwanda’s Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board Minister Francis Gatare signed on behalf of his country.

The MoU is part of bilateral engagements that were initiated by President Mnangagwa and his Rwandan counterpart President Paul Kagame, which saw President Mnangagwa visiting Rwanda last month and expressing Government’s willingness to tap from the East African country’s economic revival model.

Speaking at the signing ceremony in Harare yesterday, Minister Chitando said the two countries sought to cooperate in areas of training, shared expertise to capacitate mining institutions, which allows Zimbabwe to tap best practices from Rwanda’s small scale mining sector.

“(The MoU) . . . further strengthens the economic cooperation between the Government of Zimbabwe and the Republic of Rwanda,” he said.

“In terms of the spirit of this MoU, we would like to see how the two countries can cooperate specifically in terms of sharing training facilities in the mining space.

“Secondly, we would like the two ministries, the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development in Zimbabwe and our sister ministry in Rwanda, to share expertise to capacitate the respective ministries and other institutions in the mining space to develop the potential which exist in the two countries.

“We also would like to cooperate and enhance the production of minerals in the two countries and our colleagues in Rwanda have very interesting experiences in the development of the small scale (mining) sector and we also would like to share those experiences.”

Minister Gatare said the signing of the MoU was anchored on the Africa Mining Vision, which was adopted by the African Union in 2009 and emphasises continental economic growth on the back of mineral resources.

He said for the two countries to achieve their mining sector goals, they needed sufficient private sector investment and participation, which Zimbabwe has already committed itself to facilitating under the Transitional Stabilisation Programme.

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