To increase bilateral trade between India and Zambia five-fold to reach $1 billion mark, the Zambia Government on Monday invited Indian firms to invest in core sectors.
Talking to The Hindu , Stephen Mwansa, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry, said “the bilateral trade between the two countries is very low at about $200 million and we would like to increase it to $1 billion at the earliest. The turnover can increase even if small sized companies make sizeable investment in Zambia. It is very easy to start a firm for which approvals are given in two days.”
Mentioning that they are not a land-locked country, but land-linked with eight countries with 400 million people, he said ignoring Zambia would amount to losing access to the huge market. Further, it was a fully-liberalised economy. Leading a 21-member delegation to Mumbai and Chennai, he said that Zambia invited investments in areas such as agriculture, mining, tourism, ICT, energy, education, manufacturing, construction, infrastructure and telecom to enhance its trade, investment and bilateral relations with India.
In the last five years, Indian firms had invested $2.3 billion and thereby creating 13,000 jobs, he said.Speaking about some of the attractive features of Zambia, J. Jegathesan, Senior Economic Advisor to Japanese International Co-operation Agency and Zambia Government, described it as a peaceful, religious country and with no visible sign of poverty, or religious or racial conflict.
K. Jayaramakrishnan, Convenor, Panel on tourism & sports, CII – Tamil Nadu State Council urged for exchange programme with Zambian institutions, universities and enterprises in education and skill development, tourism and sports.
J.N. Amrolia, Chairman, CII-SR International Networking Forum, said Zambia should be very high on the radar of Indian investment explorations.
