Zambia risks continuing being a dumping ground – ZAM

The Zambia Institute of Marketing (ZIM) says there is need for marketers to reflect and determine how they fit in the process of value addition and employment creation as the country celebrates 50 years of independence.

Speaking at the 18th Annual marketing conference and award gala media breakfast launch in Lusaka today, ZIM President Evans Muhanga says Zambia is endowed with abundant natural resources, but that such resources remain worthless if they are not transformed into something valuable.

Mr. Muhanga notes that Zambia has allowed itself to be exploited by concentrating on extractive industries other than manufacturing thereby allowing its resources to be siphoned out of the country in their raw form and only to return as finished products at great cost to the country.

He adds that the country risks remaining the dumping ground for substandard finished goods if it does not address the matter, stating that there is need to own the process from extraction to finished goods for the local people to benefit from the God given wealth of the nation.

Mr. Muhanga says Zambia has continued to generate wealth for other countries at the expense of its own people who have continued to wallow in abject poverty due to lack of real employment.

He adds that value addition translates into so many things one of them being employment creation which the country has continued to generate for other countries.

The Annual Marketing Conference and Awards Gala will be held on 6th and 7th November 2014 in Livingstone under the theme “understanding the role of the marketing process in value addition and employment creation”.