Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
CTPD Acting executive director Isaac Mwaipopo
The Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD) has urged government to take advantage of the prevailing situation within SADC region to generate the much needed revenue.
CTPD Acting executive director Isaac Mwaipopo has observed that despite Zambia having demonstrated resilience to the changing weather patterns, Zambia has continued to pursue policies that discourage investments in the Agriculture sector.
Mr. Mwaipopo says some of these policies include the imposition of export bans done through administrative delays or through the use of Statutory Instruments.
He says this has in many marketing seasons triggered a rise in illicit maize trade done through some of the countries porous border posts.
Mr. Mwaipopo says his organization has observed with concern the continued reports on smuggling of maize through the border posts such as Dhanida and Mwami Boarder, attributing the continued smuggling of maize to stronger external demand forces as there is huge demand for Zambian maize from deficit neighboring countries like Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the democratic Republic of Congo.
He says Zambia is one of the few countries within SADC that currently has sufficient maize to meet its domestic consumption demands as well as surplus that could be sold on the export market.
He tells QFM News in a statement that on the other side, Zambia is currently faced with a number of economic and social challenges as rightly highlighted by the Minister of Finance, Felix Mutati when he presented the Ministerial statement on the State of the Economy and planned Economic Recovery Programme.
He points out that extreme rural poverty in Zambia now stands at 57%, growth of the economy has slowed and is currently projected to hang around 3to 3.6% for 2O16,this is far below the economic growth rate target needed if Zambia is to reduce the persisting high levels of poverty.