Indonesia has proposed rail and road projects for Zimbabwe to aid the country's economic agenda. As Zimbabwe is moving from landlocked to land-linked, it is reshaping its economic thrust to boosting its trade relations with other markets.
With this growth comes the need to expand and rehabilitate existing infrastructure that will boost Zimbabwe's capacity as a gateway to regional markets within the SADC region.
Indonesian Ambassador to Zimbabwe Juniarta Sastrawan paid a courtesy call on Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Joel Biggie Matiza, proposing a partnership with Zimbabwe in rail, road and aviation. This would in the end be a strategic step to ensure robust economic performance.
"We have a large rolling stock which we can utilise to form a partnership with Zimbabwe. Rail is a low hanging fruit for Indonesia because this is an area where already we have a state firm that is producing wagons which we can work with Zimbabwe.
"We are looking at a deal that can adopt the form of built operate and transfer," said ambassador Sastrawan.
Zimbabwe's railway infrastructure is currently in a bad shape after experiencing rapid decline due to issues of mismanagement at the National Railways of Zimbabwe. Minister Matiza says the proposal is a silver lining for the ailing sector which government will strongly consider. Zimbabwe has a yawning deficit on infrastructure requiring an estimated 20 billion dollars over the next decade.
Source: zbc.co.zw
