HARARE - New Korean ambassador to Zimbabwe Yong-kyu Kwon has backed Zimbabwe to come out of its current economic challenges which his country once experienced.
The Korean envoy who toured the Daily News on Wednesday, said the country’s economic recovery anchors on beneficiation and full resource utilisation.
“There is a lot of potential here, you have many resources and there is a lot of talk about turning around the economy,”
“My Korea experienced such economic conditions before, but I think you can do it. You need to find a way to add value to your resources. Zimbabwe has a lot of natural resources,” he said.
Kwon presented his credentials to President Robert Mugabe two months ago and revealed the Zimbabwean leader was keen to see Korea increase its investment in the country.
“I have been in the country for two months, when I presented my credentials to the president he emphasised on our investing in Zimbabwe and on bilateral relationships between our country which have been in existence for the past 20 years,” Kwon said.
This year marks 20 years of diplomatic relations between the Asian country and Zimbabwe.
The Korean envoy agrees with Mugabe that the economic and bilateral relations, while decent, need to be complemented by significant investments.
“We need to increase the momentum. We have been lukewarm but it’s now time to turnaround the future cooperations. Many Korean people are interested in mining here,” Kwon said.
“I recently visited one of the factories run by Koreans here and they employ about 500 Zimbabweans,” he said, refereeing to Bella Industries.
Bella are manufacturers of synthetic braid and hair extensions.
The company has been in existence since 1994 and export to various countries.
The Korean envoy said he had also met with officials from Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority and was looking into ways of investing in energy to help mitigate the current power deficit.
Kwon said Zimbabwe was a different country from the negative reports that he had heard and the wrong perceptions people had on it.
“I was concerned about the situation in Zimbabwe because I had heard bad news about it but I came to know that I had been misled and misguided. You need to add value to resources”.