LIVINGSTONE (The Business Telegraph):- The Zambia Association of Manufacturers – ZAM has attributed the acceleration of the Southern African countries diversification agenda and its local sourcing to disease pandemic over the last 5 months. Speaking during the Anakazi Online conversation, ZAM President Ezekiel Sekele said disease pandemic has not only presented challenges for the manufacturing sector but shown silverlinings for Zambia to speed up its diversification agenda aligned to the Seventh National Development Plan – SNDP. Zambia’s SNDP seeks to diversify the country away from traditional mining to agriculture and manufacturing while the last 5 months have seen a significant shift in dependency on local sources for chain stores, he said.
NOTHING THE SECTOR DID NOT KNOW, COVID SPED UP DIVERSIFICATION
In the last 5 months there have been no shortages of food products in chain stores a true testament of how well local sourcing has been harnessed.
“Nothing is new, if we do some introspection we will note that COVID has just given us extra adrenaline to implement that which we already know. Being a landlocked country, border shut downs by our neighbors by default meant that ours would be shut thereby impacting our trade flows with our partners,” Sekele remarked.
Sekele highlighted the immense and selfless work that ZAM has done through key task force alliances with other stakeholders such as the Zambia National Farmers Union – ZNFU, Zambia Chamber Commerce and Industry – ZACCI working in conjunction with the South African government to ensure supply chain continuity in difficult an unpredictable times. These alliances have worked tirelessly to actualize the Republican President’s directive for local produce to find a home in chain store shelves in this period that disease pandemic has distorted supply chains. Sekele during the conversation said the local supply impetus has increased with the local sources levitating to higher than pre- levels of 43% (local) versus 57% (international imports) for chain stores such as Shoprite Ltd.
“We wish to single out our colleagues at the Commerce Ministry for working tirelessly to ensure that permits and certificates were processed for truck transportation purposes during the partial lockdown period to facilitate exportation and importation of goods and services,” Sekele said. We worked in conjunction with the Truckers Association of Zambia – TAZ to ensure trucks still ferried goods, he said.
WOMEN EMPOWERMENT AND PRIORITIZATION
The Association has run programs that prioritize women empowerment. in this disease pandemic era, ZAM has supported the Zambia Federation of Women in Business with face mask projects leveraging off the opportunity COVID presented through its health prevention protocols.
ILLICIT MARKET IS RIFE – MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY HURDLES
Zambia’s manufacturing industry is faced with the key challenge of illicit markets which are hemorrhaging revenues and weighing competitiveness and growth of the sector. Recently, the revenue authority has been working around the clock to curb this vice. The sectors potential has nonetheless been singled out by research done by Eurofirst revealing that some sub sectors of the manufacturing industry such as the beverage is bleeding circa $150million annually through taxation and counterfeit related leakages.
The 3.5 decades manufacturing think-tank also grapples with a membership quagmire is currently voluntary and rests at about 240 entities. However ZAM looks forward to a time when all manufacturing entities will compulsorily be members and as such is working with the authorities to ensure this actualizes through an Act of Parliament.
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