Mukudzei Chingwere — The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is keen to deepen economic co-operation with Zimbabwe particularly in confronting climate change challenges ahead of the 28th meeting of the United Nations annual conference on climate change, COP28, to be held in Dubai.
Plans for enhanced collaboration were spelt out by UAE Ambassador to Zimbabwe Dr Jassim al Qasimi when he paid a courtesy call on Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga in Harare yesterday.
The UAE will host this year's COP28 from November 30 to December 12 at Expo City Dubai and will aim to unite the world towards agreement on bold, practical and ambitious solutions to the most pressing global climate challenges.
Dr al Qasimi said his country was also looking at stepping up co-operation in the fields of agriculture, transport and boosting trade between the two countries.
This month, President Mnangagwa witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding worth US$1,5 billion between UAE based Global Carbon Investments and Government to unlock the value of Zimbabwe's carbon sinks and carbon mitigation measures.
UAE is a global leader in the transport sector and its keenness to do business with Zimbabwe is a sign of big capital in various sectors warming up to President Mnangagwa's investment promotion drive.
"We discussed the relationship between our two countries and we also discussed opportunities in different sectors," said Ambassador al Qasimi.
"Some of the sectors we discussed for further collaboration are agriculture, climate change, transport, improving trade among other things."
"We are looking for co-operation between the two countries especially during the summit to be held in Dubai, the Cop28. The meeting will discuss many matters and Zimbabwe has a role to play.
"We have an agreement between the Blue Carbon company and Zimbabwe and we want to see the full implementation and success of that agreement," said Ambassador Al Qasimi.
UAE is becoming one of the largest trading partners with Zimbabwe after several companies heeded the call for investment into the country.
The diversified economy of the UAE has grown rapidly and their example is a model Zimbabwe can tap from as it journeys towards the attainment of an upper middle income status by 2030.
