With virtually the whole donor community having shut its doors on assisting, Zimbabwe pull itself out of a decade-long economic meltdown, the country is counting on China's continued support in areas of trade and economic cooperation.

Although China is not giving money for free, Zimbabwe realizes that it may be the only ally, for the time being, which can assist it paddle through some of its problems in joint ventures that present win-win opportunities to locals and their foreign partners and increase industrial capacity utilization.

China has over the past few years supported Zimbabwe's land reform program, including extending a 200 million U.S. dollar concessional buyers' loan whose repayment period it recently extended from five to eight years and provided humanitarian support during the 2008/9 cholera epidemic.

Zimbabwe has also benefitted immensely from projects being undertaken under the auspices of the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), through which China is provided two primary schools and a hospital in rural Marondera at Mahusekwa growth point.

China's support under FOCAC is more robust in the agriculture sector and is building an agriculture demonstration centre at Gwebi Agricultural College to help boost yields. It has also dispatched agricultural experts and other volunteers to Zimbabwe to assist the project.However, Zimbabwe now sees a bigger window of opportunity in joint ventures and wants Chinese companies to partner locals in the exploitation of resources.

So far, Chinese companies have entered into joint ventures with local partners in the production and processing of tobacco and rice.China has also taken a keen interest in supporting agricultural production on the continent as a way of supporting its own economy and to cater for its growing middle class.

State-owned China Tobacco has already gone into contract tobacco farming with locals, boosting production and generating higher incomes for the local community.

Zimbabwe is also keen on value addition so that finished goods generate more income. To that extent, Chinese companies are exploring prospects with more Zimbabwean counterparts in the planting, processing and exporting of tobacco and cotton.

Zimbabwe has identified 20 projects for which it seeks Chinese assistance to develop, including construction of dams for irrigation and provision of potable water, power stations and a water pipeline linking the dry Matabeleland region in the south to the Zambezi River to the north.

A 45 million U.S. dollar loan agreement to support mobile phone operator NetOne's expansion program is already operational. Mumbengegwi also highlighted several other areas where cooperation between the two countries was possible, such as human resources development, science and technology research and exchanges, health, education, forestry, gender and public sector management and capacity building.

Chinese deputy minister of industry and commerce Jiang Zengwei, who led the Chinese delegation to the joint commission, said the economic development in his country and the global strategy of the Chinese government in recent years had spurred more Chinese companies to invest in resources development and exploration in Zimbabwe.

Jiang said by the end of 2009, China had cumulatively invested 100 million U.S. dollars in Zimbabwe, with the major projects including platinum, chrome and uranium mining and steel production.

In 2009, bilateral trade between the two countries stood at 297 million U.S. dollars, up by 5.6 percent from the previous year. From that China's exports were 156 million U.S. dollars and imports from Zimbabwe were 141 million U.S. dollars. In the first four months of 2010 bilateral trade stood at 224 million U.S. dollars, up by 125 percent year on year. From that China's imports from Zimbabwe already exceeded its exports to Zimbabwe of 125 million U.S. dollars by 90 percent year on year.

Jiang urged Zimbabwean authorities to continue to give the necessary support to Chinese companies so that joint cooperation between the two countries could be enhanced.