By Ambassador Christopher Mutsvangwa
A fortnight ago Manhize DISCO blast furnaces started delivering pig iron. Soon to lead to bars and other steel products.
The belching steam is being capture to drive nearby 75 MW thermal power generators.
The slag from ore- purifying limestone is being earmarked for a huge cement factory.
Yes. Carbon steel and cement, the holy grail products of affordable and sustainable nation building are now eminently the staple of Zimbabwe's industry.
A timely shot in the arm for the construction industry. And tantalising prospects for steel foundries and downstream steel fabrication of all types of widgets destined for the national, AfCTA and the global market.
As I talk, a block buster Irrigation and Climate Change Conference is soon to be held. Headlined by the National President, H.E. Dr. Emmerson D. Mnangagwa.
The fertile soils and equable climate that supply the Golden Leaf much coveted by discerning global cigarette makers are getting yet another assignment.
Lest it be forgotten. The 2005 revival of the Leaf Tobacco Sector with China Tobacco is prime mover went on to save Zimbabwe's epic Land Reform.
I saw it happen before my eyes as top diplomat to Beijing.
I take particular delight that 200 000 SME tobacco growers now join their big commercial counterparts in sharing the annual bonanza of US$700-800 million.
A far cry indeed from the former preserve of 1400 white commercial farmers before 2000 Land Reform.
There may yet be another bonus from the Leaf Tobacco Sector. The consumption of the $US$1 triilion Nicotine Industry is shifting from smoking cigarretes to vaping and electronic cigarettes.
Whence the tobacco plant waste of sucker and residue leaves, flowers and sales floor rubbish can be processed for nicotine.
This maybe a source of additional income to both farmers and the nicotine exports. Eventually it may spawn a huge e-cigarette local industry serving the global market.
Timeline for Nicotine Industry extraction could be as early as 2024-5 season.
This time the Zimbabwe Plateau's record of 10 000 dams have a much healthier, indeed non-cancerous assignment.
The goal is Food Security for the Nation and beyond to Africa's 1.3 billion consumers. An agro-industry of epic proportions beckon as Zimbabwe opens yet a new chapter for Africa's Savanna grasslands as the last frontier in the Global Food Supply Chain.
At any time and place, the SME sector serves as the pulse of national economic activity. In a basic economy, the SMEs are informal giving issue to the daily grind of giving and maintaing livelihoods.
As the economy takes off SMEs are the life blood of the commanding heights of industrial manufacture. They account for upwards of 60 per cent of nationsl GDP in advanced economies.
It's a whopping 100 per cent SME sector contribution in strategically located Austria in Central Europe. Vienna supplies goods and services to the major economies of Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Russia and all round countries.
I see a template. We need to do all and everything to grow and nurture our SME sector.
They provide feedstock goods and services to emerging industrial clusters.
I have alluded to Manhize DISCO Steel. Tsingshan, a # 259 Global Fortune 500 enterprise is the seed investor. As sure as the next sunrise, steel players of every hue and stripe will soon troop to Zimbabwe.
As it stands, Zimbabwe stands to deliver steel at an unbeatable price. The 60 per cent high grade iron ore is 7 km away from the blast furnace.
The alloy ferro-chrome is 20 to 300km away on the 600km Shamva to Gwanda Great Dyke.
High carbon content coking ore is 400km as the crow flies distance to Hwange.
Contrast to other countries that have to transport these raw materials thousands of sea-faring kilometres to their blast furnaces.
The missing gredient is cheap power. Now that the electricity demand is given, a strong bilateral bond between Harare and Maputo is imperatively in the offing.
It will help harness the abundant hydroelectricity generating potential of lower reaches of the mighty Zambezi River.
This Steel Industry Ecosystem is also igniting huge demand for water husbandry, ports, rail and road logistics through the export gateways of nearby Mozabique.
The revival of the Zimbabwe Economic Hinterland is triggering inflation busting close links that offset the 2000km arduous trip to far off Durban.
Very soon there will be efficiencies and efficacies in container delivery costs as beneficiated bulk cargoes partake in global trade through new ports in Sofala, Gaza and Nhambane Provinces.
There will be wholesome spin off to my favoured SME sector as it pig-backs on the bulk cargo handling. All driving costs of production down.
Smart Cities are soon to sprout in Manhize, conveniently located at the boundary intersection of Midlands, Mashonand East and West.
Mapinga Lithium Storage Battery Base is soon to break ground. It is driven by the Global Lithium Billionaires that have trooped into Zimbabwe at Goromonzi, Gwanda, Sabi-Buhera, Kamativi, Sandawana, Mudzi etc.
Lithium Ion Storage Batteries need copper and cobalt. Mapinga is on the seaward route of the copious copper and cobalt resources bases of Zambia and DR Congo. And graphite is in neaby Karoi.
Let it be noted, both the steel and the lithium battery sector are riding on world class technology and management as the mobility seachanges from fossil fuel to green electric energy in the era of the fight against Climate Change.
The SME sector is the channel by which trickle down prosperity is delivered to the populace by Vision 2030.
Stand primed for an explosive growth of agro-industry, steel and lithium battery sector as well as concommittand demand of the enabling goods and services of energy, water, port, rail and road logistics. And the new Smart Cities in tow.
There is the Zimbabwe Human Resource Index as yet another bright sport to energise this potent harbinger of breadth-taking progress.
Zimbabwe's educated, organized, hard-working and dsisciplined population is turning out to be a marvel to global entrepreneurs.
The Zimbabwe Diaspora has time and again proven its productive acumen in varied gl9bal labour jurisdictions be it in Johannesburg, Dubai, London, Sydney, Hong Kong, windhoek or Kigali.
If this Diaspora can so perform as a statistical template, clealy the population at home base can deliver even better. Entrepreurs take note. Should you seek the fastest route to turn capital into profit, head for Harare for its vainted labour productivity.
A final take away. A rich natural resource base worked on by a competent labour force needs INNOVATION as the driver of success. UNESCO rates Zimbabwe highest in Continental Literacy Index.
Post-war village level investment in school building and government massive teacher traning is paying off.
The jump from education to skills is invariable and inevitably ease. Our populace prides itself with the virtue of a steep learning curve.
His Excellency recently announced the licensing of Starlink Low Earth Orbit Satellite Internet Access.
Fasten your seatbelts as this educationalky adept populace tapes into the Human Global Knowledge Pool from everywhere, anywhere and anytime.
The talk is Artificial Intelligence is poised to deliver a global information and economic Dividenda many fold larger than the internet economy since the turn of the century.
I would well know as I negotiated Zimbabwe's pioneering internet backbone with fledgling CISCO on 1998-9.
Zimbabwe is well-prepped. I am awareof some US-Indian Arificial Intelligence entrepreneur boffins who are on the ground. They are of California Silicon Valley pedigree. They envisage Harare as Africa's Artificial Intelligence Incubator and propagation base on the Africa continent. How is that for AI ringing out even more productive gains in the goods and services delivery I have outlined!!!
To knit it all together has been the timely introduction of the ZiG, our gold backed structured national currency.
This monetary step was a bo-brainer for a nation of the Great Zimbabwe Civilization that is perked atop in Sub-Saharan Africa for centuries since 800AD.
Gold reserves are ubiqutous and SME gold mining is epomynous. Beyond trade as a source of foreign exchange earnings, Zimbabwe ACTUALLY 'digs money' as gold from the ground.
An entirely pleasing enterprise indeed as global currency traders seek refugee from the now wobbling US Dollar fiat currency. Saudi Arabia and its abandon of the 1971 petrodollar agreement with USA. Very soon there maybe petro-yuan with China and petro-ruppes presages a with India as big net buyers of the global petroleum trading.
This presages a bullish gold market side by side with crypto-currencies. Harare stands poised to cash in as SME gold rises. Long Live the ZiG.