(TIMES) ‘Economic gains have spawned new battles’
‘Economic gains have spawned new battles’By TIMES REPORTER
PRESIDENT Levy Mwanwasa has said the successes associated with Zambia’s economic reforms have raised challenges of the need for concessional borrowing to augment the gains. And the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has commended Zambia’s economic performance in the last five years, describing the country as a showcase.
Dr Mwanawasa said in Lusaka yesterday that the IMF should help find a solution to the problems associated with borrowing of non-concessionary loans for the country to be able to finance infrastructure development. He said this when a delegation of IMF executive directors paid a courtesy call on him at State House.
“Clearly, the success associated with the reforms we have undertaken in the past is raising new policy challenges, such as the issue of concessional versus non-concessional borrowing.
“Many African economies, such as mine, have responded well to the reforms. To go further, however, their economies need infrastructure, which costs much more,” he said.
On the other hand, Dr Mwanawasa said, the available concession funding could not meet the demand and wondered whether countries should give up the opportunities to expand the economies because of that.
“Are there no other possible solutions to prevent reckless borrowing associated with non-concessionary borrowing? The IMF should help us answer that,” he said.
He said the Zambian economy had greatly improved and it was being boosted by the export of minerals and non-metal goods, resulting in the quadrupling of export earnings while the national reserve was now more than US$1billion.
He was, however, quick to mention that development was a shifting target with never-ending challenges.
Currently, the most significant one was to expand the economy and ensure that development trickled down to the poor.
The President said it was for that reason that the Government introduced a new tax regime for the mining sector.
He assured that no mining company would get less than what they projected to get at the inception of their investments.
To prevent frustration of economic growth, he said, the Government had singled out energy as one of the hurdles and it would invest in new generation capacity as well as efficient management of the existing ones.
On the floods, Dr Mwanawasa said the country was at the risk of having an outbreak of communicable waterborne diseases, hence the need to help address it.
Earlier, IMF alternate director - Italy, Miranda Xafa and executive director for Africa Group One, Peter Gakunu, said Zambia was one of the showcases in terms of economic performance.
The duo said the country was on the right economic path and all it needed to do was to address a few challenges on the way to ensure continued success.
Mr Gakunu said Zambia had made tremendous economic progress in the last five years that had resulted in debt forgiveness, an improved macro-economic sector, among other indicators.
Apart from Ms Xafa and Mr Ganuku, others in the delegation were executive director, Aleksei Mozhin (for Russia), Ambroise Fayolle (for France), Jonathan Fried (Canada), Huayang Ge (China) and Age Bakker (the Netherlands).
Others were two of Mr Ganuku’s advisors, Diendonne Nintunze and Inyambo Mwanawina as well as senior communication officer, Lucie Mboto Fouda.
Labels: IMF
posted by MrK @ 6:28 AM
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