The choice of Look East policy was borne out of the long-standing friendship between China and Zimbabwe, Vice President Amai Joyce Mujuru said on Monday in Harare.

Mujuru made the remarks when addressing a ceremony to launch six large dump trucks imported from China by the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation in the country's capital of Harare.

The vice president said the Zimbabwean government, having realized challenges associated with providing resources alone, enunciated the "look east" policy in 2003, to attract foreign direct investment into the various sectors of the economy.

"The choice of Look East was borne out of the long-standing friendship between China and Zimbabwe," she stressed.

She said she was pleased to learn that in the field of mining the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation has to date formed four joint venture companies with Chinese institutions. "This covers a wide variety of mineral products such as platinum, gold, chrome and copper," she said.

"In addition, this cooperation has extended to other commercial transactions such as the one we are witnessing today," the vice president said.

The six dump trucks were imported from China North Industries Corp (NORINCO) with more than 300,000 U.S. dollars as "image ambassador" for the Chinese company in Zimbabwe. This was also for the first time that Zimbabwe has imported mining trucks from China.

According to the Wang Yuetao, chief representative of NORINCO in Zimbabwe, the Chinese company has signed another contract with Zimbabwean mining companies in Hwange for importing more than 10 larger mining trucks with automatic unloading capacity of 91 tons from China in August this year.

Source: Xinhua