Danish envoy challenges private sector to create jobs
Danish envoy challenges private sector to create jobsBy Chibaula Silwamba
Saturday March 29, 2008 [04:00]
DANISH Ambassador to Zambia Thomas Schjerbeck has said the private sector must be the ‘vehicle’ of job creation and economic growth in Zambia. In an interview in Lusaka, Ambassador Schjerbeck said the private sector was key to moving forward any country’s economy.
“We believe that the private sector must be the vehicle of job creation and enhancing economic growth and taking economic growth to be more broad based and reaching out to the poor,” Ambassador Schjerbeck said. “If there is something we can do to promote connections between Danish companies and the private sector here in Zambia, we will do. We have some facilities to assist in this way.”
He, however, said the distance between Denmark and Zambia was a hindrance to close trade ties.
“If you look at the market for Denmark, there is a nearby market in Germany, Sweden, England, Norway, France, Italy and now opening up following the enlargement of Europe to 10 more countries. Now Danish people are focused on including the 10 new member countries on the nearby market,” he said. “Zambia is too far away for us in Denmark to have so much interest because we are a small country producing products such as electronics, dairy products or whatever.
“We are not like the Chinese, a big industralised country, which would take investment to Zambia. We work in different ways.”
He said for that reason, it was difficult to attract Danish investors to Zambia.
“We have a few Danish companies and we are always promoting Zambia and we are trying to see if we can avail some resources to build up some programmes of attracting Danish investors to Zambia. But we lack resources to do that,” said Ambassador Schjerbeck. “We would like to see many more Danish companies coming to Zambia and being active here and vice versa.”
Labels: TRADE
posted by MrK @ 3:24 AM
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