eBusiness Weekly
HARARE – The European Union (EU) is in support of Zimbabwe’s Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) and will avail necessary support to help its successful implementation, a top EU diplomat said on Thursday.
Early this month, government launched a two-year economic stabilisation programme aimed at addressing the ills that have ravaged the economy for close to two decades.
The TSP is premised on five main pillars that will pave the way for the government to attain its vision of a middle income country by the year 2030.
The five pillars include governance, macro-economic stability and financial re-engagement, inclusive growth, infrastructure and utilities, and social development. Other key targets of the TSP include cutting government expenditure through civil service reform, fighting corruption as well as boosting competitiveness of the economy through ease of doing business reforms and addressing constraints impacting on industrial productivity.
New EU ambassador to Zimbabwe Timo Olkkonen said the EU was keenly following the economic and political reform process being undertaken by the Zimbabwe government.
He said the reforms undertaken so far were encouraging and that it was important to advance both political and economic reforms simultaneously.
“We are quite willing to see how our cooperation that we are engaged with the government could support those reform ambitions that the government has,” he told the media after presenting his credentials to President Mnangagwa at State House.
“There have been positive indications particularly on the economic reform agenda. What is important is to see concrete action being taken and for example the issue about macro-economic stability is a very important one and we are looking at how government will start to tackle it.
“The TSP contains a lot of issues that we agree upon and that we would like to see movement upon. The question is now to see those concrete steps.”
Meanwhile, Olkkonen said the EU would also continue offering support to Zimbabwe through development co-operation and other means.
“Currently the EU is working in the sectors of health, governance and agriculture and now we have a multi-annual framework for financing that co-operation,” he said.
“But obviously that is not the full extent of EU cooperation, there is natural resources management, there is humanitarian aid so the EU is engaged with Zimbabwe in several sectors.” – New Ziana