Thu, 20 Jul 2017 09:53:10 +0000
By BUUMBA CHIMBULU
A NUMBER of Italian investors are expected to invest in Zambia’s Horticulture industry this year, Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) president, Jervis Zimba, has revealed.
Mr Zimba said the interest from these companies followed a visit to Italy 3 months ago by a Zambian delegation which included 150 farmers.
He explained in an interview that such investment would promote value addition in Zambia.
“We have a lot on invitations for farmers to visit many places worldwide for instance, three months ago we had about 150 farmers who were invited to Italy to attend an exhibition,
“For instance in terms of horticulture, there are many companies from Italy which want to set up value addition in Zambia and they also want to modernise how Horticulture farming is done in Zambia. We need to move away from the traditional way we do things to modern and efficient ways,” he said.
Mr. Zimba also encouraged farmers to attend the upcoming 2nd Africa-Japan Business Forum in Tokyo, Japan to be held from 25th to 28th July 2017.
The Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) has invited members of the ZNFU to be part of the Zambian delegation that would travel to Japan.
The forum will be organised by the African Development Bank (ADB) in conjunction with African Diplomatic Corporation.
According to Mr. Zimba, such forums provided an opportunity to participants to promote trade and investment between foreign private sector and the African countries.
Mr. Zimba said such forums also provided a business to business platform interaction with hundreds of participants in attendance.
“This is what we call technology transfer where they partner with different farmers from there who want to add value addition in Zambia this year so they went and came back and there is a lot of connectivity between Italy and Zambia to look at partnerships,
“We are now encouraging farmers to go to Japan and showcase what Zambians can do and learn from the other side. ZDA has been very instrumental in trying to partners us with farmers,” he said.
