Maravi

Middeldorp calls for creation of conducive business environment

Middeldorp calls for creation of conducive business environment
By Chibaula Silwamba
Thursday December 06, 2007 [03:00]

A CONDUCIVE environment for starting and growing business is the only sustainable way to increase wealth for Zambians, Netherlands Ambassador to Zambia Eduard Middeldorp has advised. And deputy Secretary to the Cabinet in charge of finance and economic development Likolo Ndalamei said the changes in laws, regulations and policies related to business environment must be coupled with administrative changes.

Speaking on behalf of cooperating partners at the semi-annual review meeting of the Private Sector Development (PSD) programme in Lusaka on Tuesday, Ambassador Middeldorp said pursuing middle income status, which Zambia was pursuing, required a much smoother business environment without any unnecessary hurdles.

“The recent edition of the Doing Business report by the World Bank concludes that Zambia’s performance deteriorated relative to its competitors. The statistics do not show improvements, except for maybe the indicator for closing a business,” Ambassador Middeldorp observed.

“This type of business environment is not good enough for Zambia to grow towards a middle income status and attain ‘broad- based wealth and job creation.’ In addition, it is not good enough to attract investment, which is constantly ‘shopping’ for better places to do business.”

He urged the government to facilitate access to essential services such as finance, labour, land, electricity, telecommunication and fuel. Ambassador Middeldorp said integrating the Financial Sector Development Plan into the PSD could have dramatic impact on business costs.

“Let us remember that although lending rates are coming down, they remain second highest in the sub region,” he said.

He said the poor quality of infrastructure and high cost of fuel and telecommunication stifled economic growth.

“Fuel costs are the second in the sub region; high mobile prices in costs which are second highest in sub-Saharan Africa, and lowest access to Internet, fixed and mobile phones,” Ambassador Middeldorp said. “These constraints deter new businesses and stifle existing ones.”

And Ndalamei said the private sector expected the cost of doing business to be reduced once the PSD became operational. Ndalamei said that would in turn increase the businesses starting in Zambia and create more jobs.

And Finish Ambassador to Zambia Sinikka Antila said Finland was committed to supporting the PSD. She said supporting the growth of the private sector was one of the key bilateral ties between Finland and Zambia.

“The private sector is very necessary to the alleviation of poverty and reaching the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals),” said Ambassador Antila.

Labels: PSD, SMEs

posted by MrK @ 6:43 AM