KWACHA member of parliament Lombe Mulenga has advised the government to be cautious when signing international trade protocols that may have negative impacts on Zambia’s infant industries.

But commerce minister Felix Mutati argued that the focus of the MMD government is to attract job creating investments across all sectors of the economy through the implementation of programmes that will enhance competitiveness and diversification.

Debating the 2010 estimates and expenditure for the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry after Mutati read a policy statement for his ministry, Mulenga, who described the government as a ‘monster’, called for the re-examination of current trade protocols before signing new ones since many of the agreements were not favourable to Zambian industries.

“For instance, what benefits are we getting from signing the Economic Partnership Agreements and are Zambian goods going to compete effectively with goods coming from Europe under reciprocal arrangements and what safeguard measures have we put in place to ensure that our infant industries are protected?” asked Mulenga. “We are more of a grower and secondary producer nation with little or no value addition at all and yet this monster government is rushing to sign international trade protocols that will have negative consequences for our infant industries.”

But education minister Dora Siliya said the government had an obligation to create jobs for all people hence putting in place measures that would attract investments for both green field projects and existing state-owned companies.
“Government will not let state assets including Zamtel to go to waste and this is why we have to attract people to invest in these companies and we shall create a conducive environment for new projects to take off so that jobs are created,” said Siliya.

And Mutati said the goal for 2010 was to create jobs by securing local and foreign investments worth US $2 billion with realised projects on the ground.
He said key challenges for achieving competitiveness and diversification include improving infrastructure, undertaking reforms and attracting investments.

“Our efforts of diversifying the economy are gaining momentum with non-traditional exports (NTEs) contributing close to 40 per cent of total exports in 2009. Apart from our conventional sugar, cement and copper cables exports to the big markets, our local entrepreneurs are responding favourably to government’s diversification policy and we now have an SME exporting seed to Mexico, herbs and beads to China and artefacts to the US,” Mutati said.
On expanding regional and international trade, Mutati said the government was working on ensuring that the final outcome of EPAs and the Doha Round of global trade negotiations were aligned to support the economic and growth objectives of Zambia.

Mutati said the government was also harmonising regulations, trade policies, programmes and infrastructure plans in the context of the tripartite framework involving the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).
Parliament unanimously passed the commerce ministry’s 2010 budgetary allocation of K41.5 billion compared to K52.9 billion allocated in 2009.