Zambia gets 1% of FDI from Southern, Eastern Africa - ZBF
Zambia gets 1% of FDI from Southern, Eastern Africa - ZBFBy Fridah Zinyama
Wednesday May 23, 2007 [04:00]
THE Zambia Business Forum has revealed that the country only gets one per cent of the Foreign Direct Investment that comes into the Southern and Eastern African region. According to ZBF, Zambia received about US$ 259 million foreign direct investment in 2005 and recorded a marginal increase in 2006.
“If this trend is to improve, government should consider putting in place policies that will help to attract investment into the country,” ZBF stated.
ZBF indicated that government should also update the commercial law and ensure the enforcement of contracts.
“Government should also consider working with the private sector and put in place mechanisms of promoting linkages between foreign and local enterprises and address the number one constraint of starting and expanding business by local enterprises,” ZBF stated.
ZBF emphasised the importance of government in ensuring that both foreign and local investors were given good incentives for them to invest in Zambia. “One constraint that local investors have been experiencing is the lack of access and cost of finance,” ZBF stated. “Coupled with lack of incentives local investors have had a hard time investing in their own country.”
ZBF stated that local investors had been facing a number of problems and constraints and as a result had been unable to effectively and efficiently participate in economic development and job creation. “The major problem facing entrepreneurs in Zambia to start and grow their enterprises is access and cost of finance,” ZBF noted.
ZBF suggested that government comes up with specific measures to address the problem, especially for the small and medium enterprises.
Labels: FDI, ZAMBIA BUSINESS FORUM
posted by MrK @ 8:22 PM
1 Comments:
Why all this attention to *foreign* direct investment? How about domestic entrepreneurs? They too suffer from the high cost of finance. In fact, foreign investors (real investors, not the foreign companies that set up shop in Zambia under the name 'investors'), wouldn't rely at all on Zambian lending institutions, now would they? The whole problem with the government's IMF approach to 'investment' is that it leaves Zambian entrepreneurs completely out of the picture.
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