Published by the government of Zimbabwe
30 August 2007
Harare — There is a lot of political will to initiate and expand trade between Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea, with President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo not only coming for a mainly commercial visit, during which he will open the Harare Agricultural Show, but also bringing a team of businessmen with him.
Initial contacts have already produced results, with Zimbabwe Sun building a resort hotel in Equatorial Guinea and Dairibord in the final stages of negotiations to build a milk processing plant there.
Joint commissions have been set up, which will allow for speedy political action to clear any bureaucratic hurdles to further business on both sides. But there is a limit to what political leaders can do. As businesspeople never tire of pointing out, political leaders are not necessarily the best people to make commercial decisions.
Political leaders can create the right climate, they can adjust regulatory conditions where appropriate, they can grant most-favoured status customs duties. But businesspeople have to then do the business. And it is essential that all business between the two countries is built on sound commercial criteria, so that it lasts and so that it survives changes in political circumstances.
Some Zimbabwean businesses have a regrettable tendency of believing they are entitled to business on political grounds and that the world owes them a living. It does not. If they have the right sort of products or services that firms in Equatorial Guinea would like to buy, and if they can price these competitively and deliver on time, then they can do business. But they will still have to market properly and create the correct customer relations.
Equatorial Guinea is an oil exporter, so it has the export earnings to do business with whoever it wants to. Zimbabwean businesses will have to offer something extra, something special, to compete with global giants.
That something extra is likely to be knowledge of Africa, a willingness to go the extra mile in servicing customers, and being able to offer the personal touch to business in what is a fairly small country. But many Zimbabwean exporters are also modest size concerns, especially by world standards, so an Equatorial Guinean customer can be a major customer, deserving of special attention, including tailoring products to the market.
This could go all the way to providing special packaging in the main languages, organising special production runs for products desired by customers and the like.
Zimbabwean businesses will also have to be able to deliver, on time and in a shorter time than other potential suppliers. We hope that exporters will consider the trans-Kalahari routes to Walvis Bay as one possibility and that the Government will be willing to negotiate with Botswana and Namibia for some system where goods can travel all the way in bond with just one set of documents to speed transit times.
Equatorial Guinea is never going to be a captive market for Zimbabwe. But it is a willing market. Zimbabwean businesses are going to have to sell themselves, be flexible and be able to deliver if they are to benefit from that desire for better and more trade.
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