ZimTrade, is a unique joint venture partnership between the private sector and the Government of Zimbabwe, the national trade development and promotion organization formed to assist businesses in Zimbabwe to develop and expand into profitable international trade in products and services.. Zimtrade has put in place plan to revive clothing and textile industry, which in recent years has gone through significant decline.

According to ZimTrade CEO Mrs Sithembile Pilime, the clothing and textile industry need to be reinstated to its glory days when Zimbabwe exported products in vast amounts to the European Union, SADC and the United States.

ZimTrade in September this year launched the cotton to clothing strategy that will continue until 2019 with the key objective of working towards the restoring capacity utilization at textile and clothing firms.

The strategy seeks, among other interventions, to enhance value addition through implementation of initiatives that are targeted towards improving the ginning capacity through to spinning, weaving as well as finished garments and home textiles.

The textile and clothing industry need to be restored as the sector earlier used to thrive and export large quantities into the EU and the Americas along with other markets.

As a step towards reviving the clothing and textile industry, the Mauritius-Zimbabwe buyers/sellers meeting organized by Enterprise Mauritius was officially opened yesterday.

Speaking at the event, ZimTrade CEO Mrs Sithembile Pilime, said that as trade practitioners in Zimbabwe, they need to look at sectors that are strong, as well as look at what it is that Mauritius is importing from other parts of the world, which they can supply. There may be a need, in some cases, to improve their packaging and labelling as that is a key selling point. Once they have done this, they would also consider similar missions to Mauritius.

There have been a cordial relations between Zimbabwe and Mauritius which they were plans in the early 2000s for Mauritian experts to come to Zimbabwe to help in developing the cottage industry in the clothing sector as their cottage industries have managed over the years to produce high quality products.

ZimTrade and Enterprise Mauritius will in this regard sign a memorandum of understanding by next year to formalize their relations in their bid to improve intra-Africa trade.

Mr Almedee Darga, the chairman of Enterprise Mauritius, said that Zimbabwe should revive the clothing industry because it is a formidable creator of jobs and can contribute to national wealth.

In fact Mauritius imports cotton from Zimbabwe and there's no reason why Zimbabwe cannot fully exploit this resource to help its own people.

On the opening day of the Mauritius-Zimbabwe buyer/seller meet yesterday, three Mauritian companies had already signed deals with three

Zimbabwean companies, one contract of $500 000, one contact of $1.2 million and another one for $750000 giving a total worth $2.4 million.

The buyers-sellers meeting will run for two days with the aim of developing relationships between Zimbabwe and Mauritian businesses.