Top commercial banks in Africa’s second largest copper producer, Zambia, have predicted bullish and positive economic growth in 2019. Stanbic Bank Zambia during an economic brief dubbed Economy 360 degrees, projected positive growth for the copper producer.
Speaking during the presentation Africa Research Head Phumelele Mbiyo stated that the Standard Bank Group remains bullish on Africa and Zambia. Mbiyo said the despite the economic challenges Zambia faces, the authorities have latitude to manage fiscal deficit downwards especially that it was exacerbated by infrastructure as opposed to recurrent expenditure as the case of Ghana. Mbiyo expressed confidence in the Zambian authorities to manage the economic challenges the copper producer faced and that the slow growth in most African nations is not there to stay.
Head of Global Markets Victor Chileshe highlighted bullish copper prices on the London Metal Exchange – LME as silver lining for Zambia. Mr. Chileshe echoed the Kwacha stability leveraging off the positive sentiment fever that spread to emerging market sentiment.
At another quarterly economic brief by Zambia’s largest indigenous bank ZANACO, the only bank with an in-house local research team, Dr Patrick Chileshe the Research Head in his commentary said
Positive economic growth is expected in 2019 but the dry spell in the southern part of Zambia will affect this year’s agriculture production and the country’s ability to generate electricity from its hydro power stations.
Zanaco Research Head Dr. Chileshe
Zambia’s MinFin Minister Honorable Margaret Mwanakatwe in a Treasury note earlier in the month said Zambia’s outlook was positive for 2019 supported by a robust mining agriculture and manufacturing sector.
Risks to growth for Zambia however remain from elevated debt service, lower than expected rainfall and business uncertainty around the tax environment in 2019.
