DEPUTY Minister of Agriculture Maxas Ng’onga says the country will have good maize yields in six provinces despite the devastating drought that has hit some parts of the country.

Mr Ng’onga said in an interview in Lusaka on Monday that good maize yields are expected in Luapula, Central, Northern, Muchinga, Copperbelt and Eastern Provinces. Mr Ng’onga assured farmers that Government has a good plan to ensure that no one starves, including people in drought-prone areas.

“Zambians should not panic, nobody will starve or die of hunger. Government will ensure that the food stocks in the country are not sold outside the country,’’ Mr Ng’onga said.

 

Zambia International Investment Forum 2016 Launch: Zambian Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry Margaret Mhango Mwanakatwe delivering her speech

ZAMBIA has signed a bilateral trade agreement with Angola to increase trade between the two countries. The trade stands at US$8 million in exports and US$175,000 in imports. The bilateral trade agreement will further exempt some products from customs duty.

Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry Margaret Mwanakatwe, who signed for the Zambian government, said the agreement is designed to facilitate the expansion of trade between the two countries and further strengthen economic and political ties. She urged Zambian exporters to take advantage of the trade agreement and the Angolan market by ensuring that their goods meet international standards and to work with the Zambia Bureau of Standards.

The trade agreement has provided a list of products that will be exempted from custom duty. And the agreement will further compliment other initiatives such as the development of the Lobito Corridor, which is aimed at renewal of the Benguela Railway Line which was commissioned last year.

 

Zambia has signed two loan agreements, worth $243 million, with the Africa Development Bank (ADB) for rehabilitation of the Chinsali-Nakonde Road.

This came to light at the Signing Ceremony held at the Ministry of Finance Headquarters in Lusaka. Of the $243 million Loan, $193 million is from the ADB while $50 million is from the Africa Growing Together Fund, a trust fund by the CHINESE Government to support Africa’s economic transformation.

Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda signed the Loan on behalf of the Zambian Government. He said the two hundred and 10 kilometre stretch of the Chinsali-Nakonde Road is an important project as it is part of the Great North Road-a gate to the Far -East where Zambia ferries it copper to CHINA for export.

ZAMBIA has recorded significant increase in the number of mobile phone subscribers from 2.6 million in 2007 to 10.9 million in 2015 due to increased investment in the sub-sector by mobile service providers.

Similarly, the increase in subscriber base corresponds to an improvement in service penetration relative to the population from 22.5 percent in 2007 to 70.3 percent in 2015, in a country with over 14 million people.

The number of internet users increased from 2.3 million in 2012 to five million in 2015 with majority users being through mobile cellular networks, who account for 99 percent. This increase represents a 32.2 percent rise in 2015 compared to 17.3 percent in 2012.

ZAMBIA and other countries with emerging markets will need to develop new structural reforms because their economies will worsen this year due to weak pick-up in global growth, says the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) update.

IMF economic counsellor and director of research Maurice Obstfeld says 2016 is going to be a year of ‘‘great challenges’’ and policymakers should be thinking about short-term resilience and the ways they can bolster it, but also about the longer-term growth prospects.

The WEO update underlines the urgent need for policymakers to raise actual and potential growth through a mix of demand support and structural reforms. According to the update, growth forecasts for most emerging markets and developing economies reveal a slower pick-up than previously predicted.