EPAs will not advantage Zambia, says DPI

EPAs will not advantage Zambia, says DPI
By Nomusa Michelo
Tuesday January 01, 2008 [03:00]

DEVELOPMENT Partnership International (DPI) Zambia media and strategy coordinator Richard Musauka has said the interim Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) will not advantage the country if there is no industrial development. In a statement, Musauka said the setting up of industries would undoubtedly put African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries on upright track to supply the open world markets with competitive value added products.

“The recently signed interim Economic Partnership Agreements cannot advantage Zambia and other African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) countries which have signed, unless substantial assistance from donors is targeted at the setting-up of industrial infrastructure which must target increased, balanced and sustainable trade with the developed world,” he said.

He said in order to reach a level of industrialisation, there was need to eliminate the threat of expensive imports from industrialised countries that ACP countries have been subjected to due to the lack of industries.

“The other important factor which must be taken into account is that of industrial technology transfer from the industrialised world into the ACP countries which have to enable the developing world and particularly sub-Saharan Africa which in the African region is much behind in achieving the MDGs,” he said. “If the steps to setup sufficient and suitable processing and manufacturing public and private infrastructure are put into place in the ACP countries and in particular, the case being for Zambia we are not going to make advantage benefits from the interim Economic Partnership Agreements.”

He said the government should seriously take into consideration to ensure that more industries are set up so that the country is not exporting a lot of raw material.