DOING BUSINESS IN ZAMBIA

Export Promotion in zambia

The Zambian government sees a dynamic economic growth from exports, which could be one of the engines of growth, same as it propelled the development of the now economically advanced nations. The rationale is that rapid expansion of export commodities would provide additional stimulus to growing local demands for the establishment of large scale manufacturing industries and other auxiliary industries that can boost the country’s export earnings. Export earnings can considerably provide a quantum of revenue to the nation for the stimulation of growth and national development. In order to promote exports, government established the Export Promotion and Marketing Development Division under the Zambia Development Agency. The division has the responsibility to market the country’s exports to increase the country’s earning from the sector.

Generally, the Division has the mandate of promoting export and competitive international trade from Zambia and assist Zambian businesses and entrepreneurs in accessing new markets and expanding existing ones for their products within the region and beyond. The division’s strategy extends to assisting entrepreneurs to source inputs at competitive rates.

It is mainly responsible for furthering the economic development of the country by promoting international competitiveness in business and promoting exports from Zambia. In a broader perspective, it is mandated to give advice to the Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry on matters relating to International Trade and Development through export of goods and services. For the Division to advice the minister rightfully, it studies the market access offers received from trading partners under Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), the European Union and other Regional Trading Blocks, National Initiatives and World Trade Organisation and ensures that Zambian Business take advantage of the opportunities generated by those offers.

The Division further encourages the development and growth of Zambian industries that are efficient in their use of resources, enterprising innovative and internationally competitive. It does this by fostering the creation of a conducive environment for the growth and development of local industries by providing them incentives that enables those industries to thrive in a sustainable manner. The Division collaborates with the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry in ensuring that domestic industries are enabled to grow to the level that they can stimulate development and economic growth in the country for the long term good of the economy.

This Division also ensures that Zambia meets its international obligations and commitments, including those under the COMESA, SADC, European Union and other Regional Trading blocks, national initiatives and World Trade Organisation. Meeting such obligations enables the country access certain markets as provided for in some trade agreements within those markets and thus the economy can benefit more from such privileges. Accordingly, the Division maintains regular, productive and effective dialogue and cooperation with the public and private sector and encourage public-public dialogue, public-private dialogue and private-public dialogue.

Dialogue between the public and private sectors is relevance for policy making as it attracts fresh ideas to development challenges and creates attention to those ideas. There are great opportunities for co-operation and consultation and for opportunities that donors, as well as developing-country governments, can exploit to bring the private sector into the policy-making process with enhanced efficiency and social and political acceptance. This will only happen if account is taken of the societal priorities of different contexts. The Export Promotion Division thus looks at ways and means through which the public-private dialogue can be enhanced and sustained for the country to realise meaningful economic gains from its exports.

The Division monitors the progress made by Zambia’s trading partners in reducing both tariff and non-tariff barriers. Tariff reduction boosts trade as there will be fewer restrictions on the amounts of goods that enter and exported from the country to other worlds. That way, the ZDA’s relevant division will thus have exportable goods to promote within the region as well as on the international market. As the Institute of Development Economies (IDE) puts it, a country’s industrial policies, small and medium enterprise promotion policies, and policies for attracting foreign investment are all linked to the building up of systems and environments that support the production of exportable goods. Therefore, a trade promotion Agency without exportable goods is similar to what Parkinson’s Law referred to as the colonial office without a colony. Indeed, the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry (MCTI) has formulated an industrial policy vision that is meant to improve Zambia’s earnings from exports as well as detailed SME policies. Since then, export items have alternated dynamically and expansion has continued in the recent past.

Initially, ZDA and MCTI had a great deal of room to offer assistance to local companies on export promotion strategies because for many years Zambia’s large corporations were not accustomed to exporting and overseas expansion. But currently, most of these large corporations are accumulating overseas experience and are gradually managing to do business abroad on their own. The ZDA Export Promotion and Market Division is thus nurturing MSEs, to deal with the problems of insufficient personnel, funds, technology, experience and expertise to enable them produce quality goods for the international market. Having MSEs contributions to the country’s export would increase on Zambia‘s earnings from exports, thus more resources for development.

Since private businesses are the ones that actually carry out exporting, they are always the main actors. The Export Promotion and Marketing Division of the ZDA thus have the responsibility of supporting players – creating an environment that makes exporting easier for the private businesses. It promotes export and competitive international trade from Zambia and assists Zambian businesses and entrepreneurs in accessing new markets and expanding existing ones for their products within the region and beyond. The division’s strategy extends to assisting entrepreneurs to source inputs at competitive rates. This way, the division is able to provide marketing support services to business enterprises.

The Division also encourages measures that will increase Zambia’s capacity to trade, including efforts to improve transport and communication infrastructure. To live by that mandate, the division cooperate with other state institutions and the private sector in areas linked with international trade, such as the protection of intellectual property rights, standardisation and certification and sanitary and phytosanaitary measures. This is to ensure that products being promoted meet the international standards. In turn such measures enable the business community to participate in national and international trade fairs, exhibitions, specialised fairs and trade missions as they will have goods that they can confidently showcase to other worlds.

Accordingly, the division has set strategies to through which it builds capacity in all trade-related areas in order enhancing export activities. These strategies are meant to encourage enter-business enterprise linkages, networks and cooperation at national, regional and international levels. Thus, the division participates in trade negotiations and trading arrangements that are compatible with the rules of the World Trade Organisation that remove progressively, barriers to trade between the parties to the arrangements and enhance cooperation in all areas relevant to trade. It then establish a national and international database on trade information networks and disseminate such market information and information on all trade agreements to which Zambia is a part to the business community.