GOVERNMENT yesterday inked a five-year staff development deal with representatives of Chinese think-tank, International Co-operation Centre of National Development and Reform (ICC- NDRC), to facilitate implementation of economic reforms.
BY BLESSED MHLANGA
The deal, expected to run from 2019 to 2023, was signed between chief secretary to the President and Cabinet Misheck Sibanda and ICC-NDRC deputy director general, Song Gongmei.
Addressing journalists after the signing ceremony in Harare, Sibanda said the deal was a follow-up to earlier promises made during former President Robert Mugabe’s reign.
“They have come to us following on an earlier agreement we signed with them in 2015, as we were conceptualising the establishment of the special economic zones and other areas, which could fast-track our development programme, but they are coming now on the heels of His Excellency President (Emmerson) Mnangagwa’s successful State visit to China,” he said.
“They have been mandated by their government to follow up and try to actualise those major deals that were signed by offering necessary capacitation in terms of skills to our people, that is the essence of the agreement.”
