ZDA to disburse US$2.2m from ZEDEF

ZAMBIA Development Agency (ZDA) will this year disburse loans worth US$2.2 million to Small and Medium Enterprises under the Zambia Export Development Fund (ZEDEF).

ZDA Fund Manager, David Chewe, said the agency was targeting to disburse 22 loans, of an average of $100,000 each, amounting to $2.2 million.

Dr Chewe said the disbursements would be done under the ZDA-managed Zambia Export Development Fund (ZEDEF) whose objective is to increase NonTraditional Exports (NTEs) through provision of low-cost export finance across sectors.

Dr Chewe said the agency had so far disbursed one loan from the Fund and that it was set to distribute the second one in the next two weeks.

The fund, he said, was specially targeted at various Non-traditional Exports (NTEs) other than copper and cobalt.

He was speaking in an interview at the justended 93rd Agriculture and Commercial Show in Lusaka.

“Of the $2.2 million, we have only disbursed one loan and the other one should be disbursed in the next two weeks,” Dr Chewe said.

“We were supposed to finalise but with the outbreak of food and mouth disease it has affected the market so it means we cannot produce our money until the disease is sorted out,” he said.

Dr Chewe said the agency was looking at ways to assist SMEs expand their businesses by issuing out loans at a lower rate.

He said ZDA prepared entrepreneurs under the enterprise directorate where SMEs were assisted, their businesses were supported in skills, marketing and product quality. “We are waiting for people who are ready to export meaning someone has to prepare them and when they come to us meaning they are ready to export,” he said.

“We help them reach a stage where they need to scale up, meaning moving from the current production to become big players, under the ZDA arrangement they are supposed to be migrated once they have proven that they can do it,” Dr Chewe said.