Thursday, March 28, 2024

High bank interest rates hinder development, says DPS

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A senior government official in Northwestern province has observed that high interest rates of borrowing from banks were hindering a rapid development of the private sector in the country.

Deputy Permanent Secretary Nkolola Hazemba said the interest rates were prohibitive.

Mr. Hazemba has since appealed to financial lending institutions to be flexible and reduce the lending rates.

He said this when he officiated at the first business trade fair organized by Northwestern chamber of commerce held at Royal Solwezi Hotel yesterday.

Mr. Hazemba said government has partnered with the private sector such as the chamber of commerce to exchange ideas in order to develop the country.

He noted that currently, companies operating in Northwestern province might not know what others were offering hence they travel all the way to the Copperbelt and Lusaka provinces to source certain items.

He further called on all business communities to take the opportunity to participate in future business trade fairs to market and show their products and services to others.

Mr. Hazemba also noted that this would enable business people to interact with their fellow business men and women and share developmental ideas.

Speaking earlier, Northwestern Chamber Of Commerce president Brenda Kunda said the business trade fair was the first of its kind in the district since the organization was formed four years ago.

Ms. Kunda said the idea of the business trade fair was to interact and share ideas on how they could improve their products and enhance service delivery.

She expressed concern that companies in the province only exhibited in the mining and agriculture show on the Copperbelt province and not in their local show.

She said this was due to poor state of the show ground which she said was not conducive to attract corporate companies to participate.

Ms Kunda has therefore appealed to government to maintain the show ground and to seriously look at partnering with the private sector in order to bring sanity to the show ground.

She further noted that Solwezi was moving from a rural setting to a cosmopolitan district hence the need to know and identify areas that should be explored for diversification.

Some of the companies which participated were Professional Insurance, Zamtel, Northwestern Water and Sewerage Company, Mwaka Lodge and Finance Bank.

Others were Floriana Lodge, Bresmar Investment, Goldman Insurance, Madison Insurance, Plasma Enterprises and Wana Cleaning Companies respectively.

And Floriana Lodge was awarded first prize while Zamtel came second and Finance Bank grabbed the third position.

ZANIS

1 COMMENT

  1. A very interesting observation Ba DPS.Question is though, ‘What is Govt’s deliberate policy in ensuring that the cost of borrowing in Zambia reduces?’
    Businessmen and Farmers have continually cried about how their products are generally uncompetitive internationally and even locally because of this.

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