GWERU, Zimbabwe, Aug. 28 (Xinhua)-- Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping on Monday urged Zimbabwe to increase agricultural production for exports into the huge Chinese market.
Huang said the two country's economies were highly complementary, especially in the agriculture sector where Zimbabwe has huge production potential while China has a huge market.
The two countries therefore need to strengthen their cooperation in the sector where there are vast opportunities for value addition, he said.
Ambassador Huang was speaking at a joint press conference with World Food Program (WFP) Zimbabwe country director Eddie Rowe ahead of the launch of a Chinese-funded resilience building project in Zvishavane, Midlands Province on Tuesday.
"Zimbabwe's potential to produce agricultural produce is huge, but of course you need to have a market for that produce and that is something that China can offer," the ambassador said.
He said Zimbabwe could produce citrus fruits, horticulture products and meat products for exports into China.
China could transfer technology to Zimbabwe to help it process some of its perishable horticultural produce before exporting it to China, the Chinese envoy added.
He indicated that he was pushing for export clearances between the two countries to be completed so that Zimbabwe can expeditiously begin large-scale agriculture exports into China.
China was targeting to start with citrus imports from Zimbabwe and then expand into other products like avocados, tomatoes and flowers, he said, adding that two Chinese experts were recently in Zimbabwe to assess the feasibility of Zimbabwe exporting citrus fruits into China.
Before the land reform program in 2000, Zimbabwe used to be one of the major African countries exporting horticulture products into the European Union.
Horticulture exports constituted Zimbabwe's second largest agricultural export earner after tobacco.
