Alyaksandr Lukashenka has proposed building a seaport in Mozambique with the involvement of Zimbabwe. The proposal was voiced during Lukashenka’s meeting with the Chair of the Senate of Zimbabwe, Mabel Memory Chinomona, who is on a visit to Belarus.
“As I was thinking about the prospects of Belarus’s work in Africa, I returned to an old thesis that we discussed with your president: we badly need a foothold on the coast of the African continent — in the south-east. This means that together we should work with Zimbabwe on building a port in your neighbouring country, Mozambique.
If we were to implement this idea together with Mozambique and Zimbabwe — and in this case we can do it — and restore rail links through your neighbour (the distance there is short) to Zimbabwe, then your country would become a good hub for goods not only from Belarus, but also for goods from other states. I think, first and foremost, from Russia,” Lukashenka said, according to his press service.
This is not the first trilateral initiative he has announced recently. During a visit to Algeria, he proposed creating a joint fertiliser production project “for three” with the participation of Oman. Oman could supply phosphates, Algeria natural gas for nitrogen fertiliser production, and Belarus contribute potash.
Speaking about bilateral relations with Zimbabwe, Lukashenka set the goal of reaching trade turnover of 100 million dollars.
“As for relations between Belarus and Zimbabwe, there are practically no problems here. We simply need to follow our roadmap that has been developed and implement the measures outlined in this plan. In this regard, we will do everything we have promised.
It is very important for our cooperation that parliamentarians and senators exercise oversight over the implementation of the agreements reached — both in Zimbabwe and here. So we have a large volume of work ahead in order to reach trade turnover of more than 100 million dollars in a couple of years, as we agreed,” he said.
It should be noted that the meeting with the head of Zimbabwe’s Senate appears to have been the event that, according to the official version, prevented Alyaksandr Lukashenka from attending the first meeting of the Peace Council. In early February, his press secretary Natallia Eismant said that the invitation had arrived too late and Lukashenka’s schedule had already been formed: “There are issues that cannot be postponed.” Lukashenka himself recently gave a more detailed explanation during a meeting with State Secretary of the Union State Sergey Glazyev.
