(TIMES) Poor funding hinders manufacturing sector

Poor funding hinders manufacturing sector
By Business Reporter

Inadequate funding and an oudated legal framework are among the constraints hindering progress in the local manufacturing sector, Commerce, Trade and Industry Deputy Minister, Richard Taima has said.

Mr Taima who was officiating at an international workshop on manufacturing statistics in Lusaka yesterday said that apart from poor physical infrastructure, the local production sector was facing a lot of challenges which the Government was ready to address.

“Lack of funding, poor infrastructure, outdated and sometimes inadequate statistical legal provisions, are some of the challenges that Government will address amidst ever increasing demand for resources among various competing sectors of the economy,” Mr Taima said.

The minister said there was great need to monitor the growth of the manufacturing sector as it was an important factor in monitoring progress towards achieving the economic targets.

He said statistics play a pivotal role in policy formulation, decision making evaluation and monitoring of Government programmes and projects.

“There is great need to monitor the growth of the manufacturing sector in a quest to improve the standards of living of the people and also assess whether the set targets were being achieved,” he said

Mr Taima said as a priority sector, Zambia had dedicated a whole chapter in the Fifth National Development Plan to deal with statistical development for monitoring and evaluation due to the sectors’ strong multiplier effect to the economy.

“This is based on the assumption that productivity gains and technical progress arising in the manufacturing sector would rise not only for the sector alone but also in other sectors,” he said.

The Government had created relevant institutions to require statistics on various economic sectors, such as the Zambia Development Agency, Zambia Competition Commission, Zambia Bureau of Standards and the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission.

Mr Taima said even at regional and international levels, various measures were being put in place to manage critical statistics for development, but that there was need for harmonisation of those effect.

“The challenge before you as professional statisticians is to ensure that required statistical data is made available in user friendly formats and disseminated expeditiously for timely decision making,” He said.

Mr Taima also noted that there were shortcomings in terms of capturing statistics because of a number of operations difficulties.