By Jackson Mapapayi
The Chamber of Commerce in North western province says the K25.7 million Constituency Development Fund (CDF) announced by government is a stimulus budget which will accelerate the growth of not just the economy for the produced nice but the country at large.
Chamber president Mukumbi Kafuta stated in a statement that the CDF allocation was in line with the government budget theme ‘Growth, Jobs and Taking Development Closer to the People.’
Mr Kafuta said the Chamber had pinned stabilization of the economy through manufacturing, job creation and decentralization as key priority areas.
He said the chamber is happy that under stabilisation, government has announced the coming on board of large agricultural estates which come with high concession for irrigation system.
“And these estates will improve irrigation for small and large scale farmers all year round, thereby giving them more disposable income,” said Mr Kafuta.
He further said the chamber was happy that government has announced plans to increase copper production to 1,000, 000 metric tonnes per year from the current paltry 300, 000 metric tonnes per year.
He said once copper production is improved more jobs are created adding that the country has not benefited much from the good copper prices which is selling at USD9, 000 per ton.
“And we hope that the formalization of small scale miners will bring on board machinery and equipment for them to benefit from the mineral resources,” he said.
On the manufacturing industry, Mr Kafuta said the sector has been the most affected in Zambia thereby killing the economy and strength of the currency.
He said under the Industrial Zone, companies will benefit greatly as they will be given tax exemptions which he said will encourage the growth of the sector.
“This will in turn result into massive job creation which have been difficult to actualize because in most cases Small Scale Enterprises (SMEs) have been suffocated for long time,” he said.
He said SMEs have no friendly credit facilities to help them grow saying the pronouncement by government to help them access friendly loans or access partnership is well thought off.
