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Zambia seeks new growth opportunities with Angola to enhance its trade and investment flows between the two countries, Commerce, Trade and Industry Minister Chipoka Mulenga has said.
Mulenga indicated during a Business Forum in Angola on Tuesday that the existing trade and investment flows between Zambia and Angola are far below the levels that the two countries aspires them to be.
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He said Zambia and Angola has a lot of work to do in terms of increasing trade and investment.
“We need to move beyond the potential that exists and begin to harness the existing opportunities and actualise tangible results.
“This is a challenge to us from both the policy side and the private sector. We each have a role to play in order to change the present state of affairs,” he said.
Mulenga indicated that over the last five years, Zambia’s total exports to Angola amounted to approximately US$14.5 million, while Angola’s export to Zambia amounted to US$4 million.
He said Zambia’s top exports to Angola consists mainly of agricultural products such as maize seed, soya beans, dried beans, cereal flours, millet seed, groundnut seed, live fowls, sheep and goats, metals and among others.
Mulenga said Angola’s top exports to Zambia consist mainly of products such as self-propelled boring or sinking machinery, mobile cranes and work trucks.
He indicated that this was a challenge from both the policy side and the private sector, which need to be addressed.
“We each have a role to play in order to change the present state of affairs,” Mulenga said.
As a result, Mulenga said a number of interventions have been put in place by the Ministries responsible for trade, giving Zambia and Angola confidence that they would have a turnaround in trade and investment outlook in the next few years to come
He further said Angola had invested more than US$24 million in Zambia’s tourism sector in the last five years.
About US$18.25 million was pumped into Intercontinental Hotel and US$5 million in the construction of a shopping mall, Language Center and a Dry Port in Mumbwa.
The Business Forum organized by the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) and AIPEX is aimed at enhancing the Economic Cooperation and boosting trade and investment between the two Countries.
The Forum has brought together representatives of the private sector in both Zambia and Angola with more than 20 companies from Zambia participating in the Forum.
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