Staff Reporter

Varun Beverages Private Limited is one of the first transnational companies to heed President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s call in 2018 that Zimbabwe is open for business, thereby strengthening bilateral and trade ties between Zimbabwe and India.

The revelations were made by India’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Vijay Khanduja, during the inauguration of the US$20 million Water and Bottle Closure Fifth Plant by President Mnangagwa in Harare today.

In his opening remarks Khanduja remarked that, “The investment by Varun Beverages is a manifestation that Zimbabwe is indeed open for business. Varun is also an example of successful Indian investment in Zimbabwe and has a direct employment of at least 10 000 Zimbabweans.”

Bahl’s remarks were buttressed by Chairperson of Varun Beverages, Ravi Jaipuria, who chronicled on Varun’s intensive expansion programme which benefitted Zimbabwe immensely. 

“In 2018 we started off at 20 million bottles per month, but we have since surpassed that to 30 million bottles per month. This means that we are now producing one billion bottles per year for the Zimbabwean market. The Fifth Phase has state of the art machinery which has necessitated the massive production,” said Jaipuria.

Jaipuria added that Varun has been giving back to the society through improvement of technology and human skills.

“We are bringing new technologies and human skills to Zimbabwe. We are striving to create new ways to improve the ways of doing business and we are happy that the Zimbabweans received and loved our Pepsi products.

“For the year 2022 we hired 75 students, employed 2000 direct employees, 4000 indirect employees, and 40 000 vendors,” said Jaipuria.

Zimbabwe and India enjoy cordial relations which saw the latter extending aid to Zimbabwe through donations to the First Lady, Auxilia Mnangagwa’s Angel of Hope Foundation. The Foundation received 950 sewing machines and tuberculosis medicines in 2022.