Zimbabwe's participation at Expo 2025 Osaka will spotlight the innumerable trade and investment opportunities in Zimbabwe, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Professor Amon Murwira has said, while the platform could also help redefine the nature of economic ties between Tokyo and Harare.
Minister Murwira told The Herald Finance and Business in an interview this week that Zimbabwe would continue to use global platforms such as Expo 2025 Osaka to highlight the many economic opportunities resident in the country.
This comes as Japan prepares to welcome more than 153 countries, (Zimbabwe included) and 28 million visitors to its shores for the global event to be held from April 13, 2025 to October 13, 2025.
"We always try to promote Zimbabwe's international trade, and expos are an instrument that we use to project Zimbabwe's potential," he said.
Minister Murwira said the efforts centre on initiatives to promote investments into Zimbabwe's key sectors like tourism, mining and manufacturing as well as the country's products to be on the global marketplace.
"ZimTrade is the instrument that we use for the execution of that policy. When we say Zimbabwe is Open for Business, this is where we are going to say and prove that Zimbabwe is open for business," he said.
Minister Murwira added that global expos, by their nature, existed to provide visibility of countries' products, trade and investment opportunities, cultures and history to international audiences.
With the Second Republic taking a policy stance to prioritise economic diplomacy and export-driven economic growth in all its interactions with other nations, Expo 2025 Osaka presents another ideal platform to take Harare's trade relations with Japan, one of the world's most technologically advanced nations, and the rest of the world to the next level.
"This is the platform where (further) engagement and reengagement will be done; it is just one of the pipelines, but it is a very important pipeline. You know we were in Dubai (for Expo 2020 Dubai) and you can see the amount of trade that is happening now between Zimbabwe and Dubai (and the rest of UAE) since 2021.
"You can actually see that the trade has increased and Dubai is now the largest or second largest destination for our exports. So, that explains why we think that Zimbabwe, as a policy, always has to participate in these expos.
"At the end of the day, it is all about trade and fulfilling our Vision 2030 through making sure that there is commerce that is happening between Zimbabwe and the rest of the world," the minister said.
What is clear in the country's strategy and plan for the forthcoming expo this time around is clarity of vision and clear targets of what the country is seeking to achieve or bring back from the exhibition.
Zimbabwe is targeting to attract at least 3 million visitors to its strategically located pavilion at the world trade and investment showpiece, providing a unique chance to showcase the country's trade and investment opportunities, natural endowments, culture and history to the rest of the world. Broadly, investment opportunities in Zimbabwe cut across key sectors that include agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, mining and infrastructural development. The key sectors have numerous other value chains investors can exploit.
At Expo 2025 Osaka, Zimbabwe will exhibit under the theme, "Beyond Limits" and its pavilion will embrace diversity, innovation, and resilience, with the main thrust being how the country is surmounting various impediments through the employment of innovations.
The pavilion's theme aligns with the Second Republic's mantras and philosophies such as "Nyika inovakwa, Igonamatirwa neVene Vayo", "A Friend to All, An Enemy to None", "Zimbabwe is Open for Business", "Leaving No One and No Place Behind", "Reform and Opening Up", "Brick by Brick, Stone upon Stone", "Engagement and Re-Engagement", "Innovation, Modernisation and Industrialisation".
The country is already engaging all key stakeholders across the country's 10 provinces to gather their input and insights as well as drum up support for the event, following the first such national consultative meeting held in Zimbabwe's second-largest city, Bulawayo, recently.
The consultations will afford the country an opportunity to take stock of achievements at Expo 2020 Dubai and challenges encountered, to better prepare the country for the next exhibition in Japan.
Expo 2025 commissioner-general Allan Majuru, who is also the national trade promotion and development body, ZimTrade chief executive officer, is already on record stating the country is targeting results in terms of the number and quality of deals.
"We need trade, we need investment, we need tourists to come to Zimbabwe," he said, at a media event to launch Zimbabwe's participation at Expo 2025 Osaka.
Mr Mjuru pointed out that the country had confirmed its participation at the expo early enough to earn a prime location for its pavilion which will guarantee easy visibility from every visitor to the exhibition.
The Southern African country should be able to achieve its objectives for several reasons, including the positive vibe and image the country managed to create and project, respectively, to the global investors at Expo 2020 Dubai.
Given the invaluable experience and insights from its six months long participation in Expo 2020 Dubai, however deferred to start from October 2021 due to Covid-19 disruptions, Zimbabwe should do better this time and position itself for increased investments and business from Japan and the rest of the world.
Zimbabwe now enjoys strong trade and investment relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), following its showing at the last global exhibition, which comes only a few years after the two nations established consulate services in each other's territories.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
The UAE is now Zimbabwe's second-largest trading partner after South Africa.
About 42 percent of Zimbabwe's exports, valued at US$293,32 million, went to the UAE in October 2024. This represents a one percent growth from the US$235,6 million exported to the UAE in September 2024.
South Africa, at 24,7 percent of total exports (US$172,16 million) and China at 10, 5 percent (US$ 73,15 million) were among the country's top three export destinations during the month of October 2024. Trade between the two countries has been growing steadily over the past years, a welcome development as it aligns with Harare's aspiration of becoming an upper-middle-income society by 2030.
Part of the phenomenal growth in trade, which has also seen growth in interest from the Gulf country's cash-rich investors, is largely attributed to the country's participation at Expo 2020 Dubai. While Zimbabwe will seek to attract investment and business opportunities as well as project itself to investors and explore business opportunities from across the world, this presents a huge opportunity to expand economic relations with the host Japan.
Japanese Embassy Charge d'Affaires, Mr Hiroyuki Kumagai, recently said his country was working tirelessly to deliver a successful expo, adding the event presented huge opportunities for mutual exchanges among participants.
