Haabazoka upbeat on Economic Summit outcome

THE economic summit planned for July is to present a platform for key stakeholders can gather to discuss, evaluate and develop strategies, the Economics Association of Zambia (EAZ) has said.

EAZ president Lubinda Haabazoka said the summit aimed at strengthening the economic environment in Zambia and across Africa.

Speaking in an interview yesterday, Dr Haabazoka said stakeholders would bring out all the challenges that the country was currently passing through and solutions.

Dr Haabazoka said the response received from different stakeholders over the coming event was positive and many were looking forward to the summit.

“The response is 1000 percent and we have many stakeholders coming including the president of Zambia representing the Government, manufactures of Zambia, financial sectors and many stakeholders from abroad,” he said

And speaking when he presented Zambia’s economic performance and its effect on businesses in last week in Livingstone, Dr Haabazoka said the specific objectives of the summit were to promote economic dialogue between the state and non-state actors, improved working relationship between state and non- state actors.

He said the general the summit would also seek to improve Africa’s economy from being lower income to higher income and improve the living standards of the citizens.

“Taking into perspective the Seventh National Development plan (7NDP) which aims at accelerating development efforts towards vision 2030 and the Africa union agenda 2063 with focus on Africa,” he said

“Strengthened peer learning, information sharing mechanisms and collaboration among key players at all levels. Enhanced awareness of better economic practices at all levels were all specific objectives,” he said.