‘Wheat flour importation remain banned’

By BUSINESS REPORTER GOVERNMENT will not relax rules on the importation of wheat flour from other Southern African Development (SADC) countries, Commerce Trade and Industry Minister Christopher Yaluma has said.

Mr Yaluma, said Zambia’s decision to maintain the status-quo concerning wheat importation was in the best interest of the country as it would benefit the local economy.

The Minister was speaking on the side lines of the SADC 30th meeting of the committee of ministers of trade in Pretoria, South Africa.

Mr Yaluma said Zambia’s decision has since been accepted by the SADC Secretariat.

He said Zambia would exercise caution to adopt international trade treaties that were not favourable to the country.

He indicated that government needed some time to make extensive consultation with several local stakeholders before adopting some international trade agreements.

Government, he said, was interested in seeing that business persons in the manufacturing sectors were active participants international trade.

"Hence, we are actively working towards meeting deadlines to ensure that we carry out extensive consultations before coming up with permanent positions on some international trade agreements like joining the African Union Free Trade Area(FTA) which remained suspended," he said.

He said government had so far remained committed to ensuring that private and public sector stakeholders were involved through information dissemination and training. in regional and