Maravi

It will take years for ordinary Zambians to enjoy benefits of growth – IMF

COMMENT - 'Other parts of the world like China' did not follow the neoliberal economic model. They developed their own economy and did not throw it open to western corporations. Which is why they are successful, and countries that allowed foreign corporations to own their mines and expatriate the country's life blood are only registering conceptual economic growth, like GDP. Real people are obviously not benefiting from having their economy pillaged in this way.

It will take years for ordinary Zambians to enjoy benefits of growth – IMF
By Mutale Kapekele in Washington DC
Tue 27 Apr. 2010, 03:50 CAT

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has observed that it will take some years for ordinary Zambians to enjoy the benefits of the country’s economic growth. In an interview on Friday, IMF African department director Antoinette Sayeh said with sustained growth, Zambia would reduce poverty significantly in the near future.

“Zambia has not always recorded growth and it will take some time before poverty is reduced,” Sayeh said. “It has happened in other parts of the world like China where the population was very poor but the same is not the case after the country continued to economically grow for a number of years.”

She advised Zambia to sustain its growth for the benefits to trickle down to the lowest members of society.

Currently Zambia is said to be growing annually by 6.8 per cent according to local statistics but the number of poor people has continued to rise.

“We (IMF) are pleased that Zambia is growing economically and that it is able to attract investments,” Sayeh said. “But that growth needs to be sustained and that will result in employment creation and social services will also improve and made more widely available.”

She said the Fund was also encouraged by China’s interest on the continent and Zambia in particular and advised the country to negotiate trade deals that were transparent.

“We are encouraged by the increased interest in Africa by China, it is providing resources for investment which were otherwise not there,” she said. “Zambia needs to make sure it uses Chinese investments to improve its infrastructure and it should improve its capacity to negotiate and come up with transparent deals with China to get the best out of the relationship.”

She advised the government to share information on trade deals negotiations with the civil society and the general public to ensure transparency.

“To say China does not care about corruption is an exaggeration and it is up to countries dealing with them to ensure transparency,” Sayeh said. “For example, the Zambian government could share information on the trade deals with the public and the civil society. That will make them accountable and it is a more transparent way of doing things. It is Zambia’s responsibility to call for transparency and the civil society should know about negotiations to ensure maximum transparency by all investors, not just those from China.”

Sayeh also disclosed that Africa still had huge financial needs to address its macroeconomic challenges and the IMF alone could not manage.

“The IMF alone cannot afford to address all of Africa’s macroeconomic financial needs; they are so huge,” she said. “We offer short term focused lending. Therefore, China which has in the recent past emerged as one of the continent’s lenders can help in many areas, especially those to do with infrastructure development which the Fund does not directly fund.”

She also admitted that in the past, the IMF had made mistakes when addressing Africa’s issues and it was now working at improving its relationship with the continent.

“The fund made mistakes in the past but now we have a good relationship with Africa,” she said. “The relationship will further improve as we streamline conditionalities. In the past, the Fund programs in Africa were at times overloaded and sometimes had no expertise. There was also no sufficient ownership of programs by the member countries being helped.”

Sayeh said as a way forward, the Fund was coming up with programmes that were localised and focused on macroeconomic progress of particular countries.

She disclosed that over the past year, resources for Africa were increased to address emerging economic concerns in the region.

Sayeh said in the aftermath of the economic crisis, a lot more needed to be done to increase Africa’s resilience to shocks that came with the crisis.

Labels: ANTOINETTE SAYEH, IMF, NEOLIBERALISM

posted by MrK @ 3:02 PM