Zimbabwe should diversify its export markets in view of the impending end of preferential trade between the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) group of countries and the European Union in 2007, President Robert Mugabe said on Friday.

Trade with the EU would thereafter be on an equal basis, he said, which called for the expansion of the country's export base as well as improvement on product quality to enhance competitiveness on the international market.

Zimbabwe and the rest of the continent had enjoyed special preferences under the Lome Conventions in the form of guaranteed prices under Europe's Common Agriculture Policy.

The preferences mainly covered beef and sugar exports, but these had since been superseded by provision of the multilateral agreement of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), known as the World Trade Organization.

"The effect of this development, coupled with the imposition of the illegal, declared and undeclared sanctions on Zimbabwe, necessitates a diversified export market strategy that not only includes the Look East Policy but also our friends in South America," the president said.

A number of memoranda had been signed with cooperating partners from the Far East, which should be translated into "concrete action for our mutual economic benefit," he said.

The launch of the Zimbabwe-China Business Council (ZCBC) at the end of September was testimony to the country's commitment to trade with countries from the Far East, he added.

The government's commitment to the attainment of a Free Trade Area under the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Trade Protocol in 2008 and the establishment of a common external market under the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) should see the country reducing its dependence on traditional markets, he said.

The international onslaught on Zimbabwe as a result of the land reform program that the government embarked upon in 2000 has seen a decline in trade between the country and those from the Western world.

This necessitated the adoption of the Look East Policy, which has seen China becoming one of the Zimbabwe's major trading partners.

Source: Xinhua