STANBIC to work with ZAM to drive industrialisation says Chief Financial Officer Mwindwa Siakalima

STANBIC to work with ZAM to drive industrialisation says Chief Financial Officer Mwindwa Siakalima

Media Release with Pictures
Monday 7th September, 2020 Lusaka, Zambia

STANBIC Bank Zambia says it is prepared to work with the Zambia Association of Manufacturers (ZAM) and other stakeholders to accelerate the country’s economic diversification through value addition.
The World Bank estimates Zambia’s manufacturing sector contributes less than 10 percent to national GDP.
Bank Chief Financial Officer Mwindwa Siakalima noted that despite the rising numbers of COVID-19 cases, the country could ill afford to implement a full lockdown to flatten the curve due to its heavy dependence on imports.
“Zambia has always been an import dependent economy,” he said. “The COVID-19 outbreak has ruthlessly exposed this weakness in that we are unable to go into a full lockdown despite the rising cases due to a severe lack of adequate self-reliance in terms of value addition – essentially denying the country one of the most useful tools in combating the deadly disease.”
“The inadequacies of an import dependent economy stretch beyond dire medical repercussions, however. These kinds of economies typically have low levels of industrialisation, which in turn effects their export earnings and GDP growth and Zambia is no exception.”
“We cannot attain our growth targets as a country if we fail to grow the manufacturing sector as this is one of the most important sectors of any economy. A fully developed manufacturing sector would not only boost the country’s revenue stream and create sustainable employment, but it would also help shore up national Forex reserves through exports thus help support the local currency.

As Zambia’s largest bank, we are prepared to take the initiative and partner local entrepreneurs and the Zambia Association of Manufacturers to accelerate growth in value addition.”
And Zambia Association of Manufacturers President Ezekiel Sekele said financial institutions were well positioned to take a leading role in driving Zambia’s industrialisation agenda.

Mr Sekele, who is also Zambian Breweries Plc Corporate Affairs Director noted that COVID-19 had injected the necessary energy for the country to prioritise self-reliance in terms of value edition.
He said: “The silver lining of this pandemic is that we have seen a marked growth in local sourcing as cross border trading is slowed by the virus. Local sourcing is cardinal in growing a sustainable manufacturing industry.
Zambia Association of manufacturers is looking to spearhead this through partnership with different sector players including banks, local producers, and Government agencies.
South Africa and Zambia have created a trade taskforce which ZAM is leading in a cross-association collaboration with other local agencies through the Zambia private sector alliance.
For now, we are looking to ensuring that shelves in chain stores are filled with locally produced food.
Mr Sekele explained that the associations goal was to grow the local manufacturing sector’s contribution to GDP to more than 30 percent, in the next decade, and in line with the country’s growth targets.
He said key to doing this was minimising proliferation of counterfeit and/or substandard products on the market by expanding ZAM’s influence to make it mandatory for every manufacturer to be registered with the association through an act of parliament.
Zambia Association of manufacturers currently has over 240 members 60 percent of whom are from the food and beverages industry.
The Zambia Revenue Authority recently announced that Zambia was losing substantial tax revenues through illicit markets.

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