IMPLEMENT POLICIES TO PROMOTE KEY ECONOMIC SECTORS, GOVT URGED

By Lumbiwe Mwanza

THE Government should implement and strengthen policies aimed at promoting production in key economic sectors such as mining, agriculture, tourism, and manufacturing to grow the economy, the Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD) has said.

Recently, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that global growth is projected to fall from 3.5 per cent in 2022 to 3.0 per cent in both 2023 and 2024.

While the forecast for 2023 is modestly higher than predicted in the April 2023 World Economic Outlook (WEO), it remains weak by historical standards.

CTPD Researcher Emmanuel Muma said that with the global growth projected to fall, it was important that developing countries put up modalities to increase production and services in key economic sectors.

Mr. Mumba observed that the Government’s ambition to increase production in the mining sector should be backed by adequate policies that will enhance production to increase exports.

He said to increase export of products, it was critical that there was also adequate support for local manufacturers and SMEs through incentives.

“In Zambia, you will understand that to date, the country is still struggling with economic growth mainly due to the existing debt. However, there is a need for the Government to implement and strengthen policies aimed at increasing growth through increasing production in key economic sectors,” Mr. Muma said.

He said that as the Government strived to make Zambia a middle income country by 2030, ensuring increased productivity in the key economic sectors would help increase the Gross Domestic Growth (GDP)

He further pointed out that the manufacturing sector was a pivot of economic development through its backward and forward linkages to economic growth, exports, and employment creation.

He said that there was still untapped potential in the manufacturing sector hence implementing more policies that increased production remained crucial adding that the sector had continued to provide a market for primary products and set the basis for exports with employment generation capacity.

He emphasized that Zambia’s vision for the manufacturing sector should be technology-based and export-focused and that it must be dynamic and competitive with effective entities that add value to the locally-abundant natural resources.

“Zambia’s goal should be to develop a diversified and competitive export- led value-adding manufacturing sector which will contribute more to GDP, ” he added.