HARARE: In 2015, the monetary value of Zimbabwe’s exports to the European Union increased to over US$54 million, up from US$21.3 million in 2014. Zimbabwe’s major export destinations in the EU were United Kingdom, Netherlands, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, France and Germany.
The Netherlands was Zimbabwe’s largest export market importing over US$35 million worth of horticultural products. Statistics from ZimTrade indicate that between January and February 2016, the country exported horticultural products worth US$2.2 million.
In order to promote further exports into the Netherlands, Zimbabwe and a Netherlands organisation, PUM, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support agriculture and revive the horticultural sector in Zimbabwe and help revive Zimbabwe’s exports to the European market which in the last five years have remained subdued.
Exports of horticultural products hit their peak in 1999/2000, earning the country US$143 million. A Dutch expert in horticulture from PUM, Piet Hein De Wit, was in the country last week conducting a scoping exercise for small-scale horticultural farmers and visited banana, paprika and avocado producers in the Eastern Highlands so that they benefit from PUM’s intervention programme.
Local horticultural produce for the export market includes temperate fruits (apple, pear, peach, plum, apricot, nectarine and grape), tropical fruits and vegetables (baby corn, butternut, citrus, chilli, gem squash, kiwi, lychee, mango, passion fruit, pineapple and tamarillo), out of season fruit and vegetables (asparagus, baby carrots, fine beans, cherry tomatoes, courgettes, mange tout peas, melon, strawberries and sweet corn), as well as flowers.
