THE leaders of Zimbabwe and South Africa, Presidents Emmerson Mnangagwa and
Cyril Ramaphosa respectively, met in Beitbridge on Thursday and promised to
improve the economic and political ties between the two countries.
They also promised to boost African trade by building enabling infrastructure.
Both leaders and their delegations toured both the South African and Zimbabwean
sides of Beitbridge Border Post as they exchanged notes on how best to facilitate
human and vehicular goods movement between Zimbabwe and SA.
The two countries are major trading partners but also share labour with millions of
Zimbabweans believed to be living in South Africa legally or undocumented.
President Mnangagwa said their meeting was arranged when they met in New York
during last month’s United Nations General Assembly.
"We met in New York and had a chat with my brother and he told me he was coming
to Musina and we agreed to come and meet,” said President Mnangagwa.
“When he said he was coming to the border, I said you can’t come to Musina and not
visit the border. We are here, what else would we want when two brothers meet and
break bread?"
Ramaphosa said it is Africa's century and his country will try and match Zimbabwe's
upgraded border post to boost trade and people-to-people movement between the
two countries.
"With the advent of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area, with infrastructure like
this, the trade is just going to move," he said.
"And as we often say, this is Africa's century. It is going to be a century of great
growth and we going to see improved and increasing trade between the two
countries, investments across the borders and we are just going to see improvement
in everything. So, this is a great, great development," President Ramaphosa said in
reference to Zimbabwe's upgraded border post.

He was speaking to journalists after touring the Zimbabwe border, upgraded at a
cost of US$300 million, which he said will be replicated on the SA side.
The two countries are planning a one-stop border at Beitbridge and President
Ramaphosa admitted Zimbabwe was now more prepared for the development.

The one-stop border post will increase trade and hasten movement of goods from
Zimbabwe which is the gateway to SA's sea ports for countries north of Zimbabwe.
President Ramaphosa, who was on a scheduled working visit on his SA side of the
border, where he was scheduled to officially launch his country's Border
Management Authority, said President Mnangagwa invited him to see the improved
border post.
"He wanted me to see what he has done on the Zimbabwean side and i have just
now seen the improvement and built up of the infrastructure and border control on
the Zimbabwe side. I feel a little bit of an under performer because my brother has
done well.
"I have now come here to learn, to see exactly what needs to be done on the SA
side in order to enhance relationships and political, commercial, people-to-people
level we have got to modernise our movement, people movement, trade movement,
infrastructure …so we came here with the Minister, who is in charge of Immigration
(Aaron Motsoaledi) to see how best we can copy what Zimbabwe has done with a
view of matching them so that we have a seamless way of enabling our people, our
goods, our vehicles to move across the border of the two countries across our
common heritage which is the Limpopo River," he said.
Beitbridge came to a standstill as all cross-border business was stopped to give way
to the two leaders who had an extensive tour of Zimbabwe's border, built by an SA
company.