ZAMBIA’S GROWTH OUTLAY FERTILE
THE prevailing political, social and economic environment has created abundant investment opportunities in various sectors of the economy, a report has revealed.
According to an economic report, Zambia’s membership to the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) as well as Southern African Development Community (SADC) has created an enabling market for investors seeking to achieve lower costs through economies of scale.
The report dubbed ‘Foreign Private Investment and Investor perceptions in Zambia 2018-highlights’ summarises the survey findings on foreign assets and liabilities as well as investor perceptions.
Central Statistical Office, Bank of Zambia and the Zambia Development Agency compiled the report under the theme, “enhancing investment for industrialization and export promotion towards inclusive growth.”
“In particular, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo present large and untapped markets for Zambia’s non-traditional exports,” the report says.
The report cited tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, construction and energy as areas filled with investment opportunities.
However, the report observed that Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) inflows in Zambia mainly leaned towards mining and quarrying industry.
The report said inertia in actualising higher FDI flows to other sectors could indicate the presence of bottlenecks hindering investment in these sectors.
“Thus, to attain economic diversification, Zambia needs to attract more foreign investors to sectors such as tourism, energy, transport, manufacturing and agriculture,” the report says.
The report indicated that for this to be achieved there was need for policy and regulatory environment.
Government, the report suggested, should continue implementing specific interventions that would help alleviate hurdles to FDI inflows in the sectors highlighted.
“The country should be innovative and come up with various fiscal and non-fiscal incentives that will attract FDI,” the report says.