Gift Mashoko

Nestle Zimbabwe plans to employ 10 000 women in their distribution chain over the next five years, the Harare Post has learnt.

This was revealed during a recent tour of the company by Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Professor Mthuli Ncube.

Nestle Zimbabwe which is still operational and running at full scale despite the economic challenges, also intends to train Zimbabwean farmers in dairy farming.

Prof Ncube’s visit which he dubbed ‘a listening tour to industry,’ was a follow up visit after he met with Nestle’s senior management at World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos last month.

Nestle is a foreign investor in Zimbabwe and has been operating in Zimbabwe for over 50 years.

The minister was told that the company has a wide variety of product range which includes Cerevita and Cerelac among others, all of which are very competitive and on high demand in the export market.

Nestle’s economic activities are in line with President Emmerson Mnagagwa’s need to modernise and industrialise Zimbabwe so as to improve the economy with comprehensive economic reforms which foster environmentally friendly atmosphere, promoting and protecting private enterprise, improve the ease and cost of doing business, creating employment.

President Mnangagwa always gives the importance of companies to deepen Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes stating that they trigger development and self-reliance in communities. Nestlé has in line with this embarked on a dairy development initiative called the Nestlé Dairy Development Empowerment Scheme to support the revival of dairy farming amongst commercial and small scale farmers.