ZAM WANTS TO BECOME STATUTORY BODY

…move would enhance growth

By BUUMBA CHIMBULU THE Zambia Association of Manufactures (ZAM) has announced that it will next year begin pushing to become a statutory body of Parliament which will act as a robust plan that will be used to promote value addition in the country.

ZAM chief executive officer, Chipego Zulu, explained that the statutory body would assist in coordinating the sector and deliver policies that would enhance the growth of the industry.

Mr Zulu: “2018 will be a big one for us; we have high expectations and pushing ourselves to perform.

We are also pushing to see if we can get the association to become an act of Parliament or essentially statutory body to help us with the coordination of the manufacturing sector and to be able to deliver that policy that will help us grow,

“So into 2018 we are expecting a lot, we have put in place a robust plan that aims to put value addition in front of all Zambians. We want people to engage freely with the secretariat a lot more and think of how to promote value addition,” she said.

Ms. Zulu explained in an interview that pushing to become a statutory body was also aimed at consolidating Government’s efforts alluded to in the 2018 national budget of focusing on value addition.

“We are going into 2018 with a lot of expectations, the national budget alluded to the fact that we are putting on focus on value addition especially in the agro processing sector where we have a number of incentives on tobacco and stock feed,” she said.

Ms. Zulu said the association would also next year roll out the buy Zambia campaign to the industry and service providers.

Meanwhile, Ms. Zulu said the industry had recorder improved performance in 2017 owing to stable macroeconomic conditions such as inflation and the exchange rate.