Zambia signed trade contracts worth US $100 million with grain traders from eastern Africa on Thursday for the export of 382,640 metric tonnes white maize, soyabeans and other grains.
The deals were sealed in Lusaka during a regional Trade Facilitation Forum organised by the Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) in collaboration with Zambia Commodity Exchange (ZAMACE), with support of USAID’s East Africa Trade and Investment Hub and USAID’s Southern Africa Trade and Investment Hub.
The forum brought together over 195 sellers and buyers of maize, soya beans, common beans, millet and other grain commodities from, Burundi, Malawi, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Currently, the Eastern Africa region is suffering an acute shortage of food grains, including maize and soybeans following poor harvest resulting from erratic rains experienced during the planting season in 2016.
Southern Africa on the other hand is currently facing a more positive outlook for food production.
Production prospects in 2017 for key food staples in Zambia, particularly maize, are quite favourable, with the country expected to record sufficient tradeable surplus this year of 3.2 million tonnes.
The Zambian government, which lifted a ban on maize exports in May, announced on Thursday the scrapping of a 10 percent tax on maize exports to make local producers more competitive to penetrate regional markets.
“As a government we declare that we will no longer have any export bans and we announce the removal of 10 per cent export tax on all grain commodities,” minister of finance, Mr Felix Mutati said.
He also said the government would ensure the simplification of export processes, and work with all governments in the region to support regional trade and to reduce on the rules on the certificate of origin.
And ZAMACE Executive Director, Mr Jacob Mwale, said the Commodity Exchange was committed to support the buyers and sellers through the provision of a trade platform, which includes buying and selling of commodities, ensuring compliance to industry acceptable Grades and Standards as well as coordinating the Zambian Commodities Futures Contract and providing market information.
“ZAMACE is committed to provide warehouse certification services and the issuance of negotiable warehouse receipts to the stakeholders,” he said.
Mr. Yohaness Assefa, Director in charge of Agriculture and Agribusiness with the East Africa Trade and Investment Hub project, was pleased that the forum had resulted in significant regional trade in staple foods by linking Zambian suppliers with buyers from East Africa to improve the food security outlook in the EAC region.
“Thanks to the hard work of EAGC and ZAMACE, our regional partners, 1.3 Million families in the EAC region will have access to affordable staple foods as a result of the over 380,000MT grains traded today,” he said.
Mr. Gerald Masila, the EAGC Executive Director said the Council would continue to engage the Zambian government to create mutually agreed mechanisms to facilitate trade between Zambia and eastern and southern African countries for the successful execution of trade agreements and optimal benefits of contracting parties.
He also called on policy makers and private sector actors to work together to reduce barriers to grain trade for the realisation of economic growth and increased productivity.
Since 2011, Musika supported the establishment of ZAMACE by providing technical assistance and financial support to maintain and develop its operations and also provided technical support to Zambia National Farmers’ Union and Grain Traders Association of Zambia (GTAZ) in promoting greater private sector participation in grain marketing by smallholders.
But this is not the benefit of Zambians because 10% has been removed.
Stop giving HH a heart attack ka! Watch for one of his poems this afternoon. I hear he has coined the term ZaMandela for himself, meaning he is the Zambian Mandela. Do you agree sure mwebantu?
I hope Tanzania detains as many Zambian trucks as possible, because most of maize originating from Zambia will be stolen commodity.
Who is going to export??FRA , GRZ or grain traders??if it’s FRA or GRZ then the country will benefit.But if it is grain traders then the country will not benefit as the whole system is corrupt;grain traders will get the maize from FRA at a reduced price and will sell at high prices..they will fund the party in power and loot freely..its high time these corrupt elements start fearing their GOD and practice their religion.
The Kenyans are coming to buy maize from Zambia after Tanzania’s Magufuli banned the export of unprocessed maize to Kenya. PF are too dimwitted to figure this one out: DON’T EXPORT MAIZE; EXPORT MEALIE MEAL.
When you export mealie meal, you keep Zambian millers busy. They employ Zambians. Zambia also keeps maize byproducts (bran and grits) for stockfeed. And the East Africans will still get the mealie meal, not maize, they need.
Will that leave us with enough grains for Chibuku making? Zambians can’t just be eaters we also need drunkedness to forget our miseries.
Please keep this away from Lazy Lungu and Dora as someone will not get paid.
Masters of negativity from one tribe will never accept any progress! That is why a thief who stole privatization funds will never ever go to State House.
UPND is distressed whenever we make progress.
this is damn good progress under a damn good president.
Under a damn drunkard makes alot of sense
@comrade Kudos well said, truelly One ECL has heard the cries of the common farmer, let greedy millers such as the Greek mafia oligarchy millers and some fat greedy Zambian millers such as Great Bull.shi.t Man (GBM) suffer from BP as a result of this great initiative!
We asked the Head of State our Great Leader One ECL to remove the export ban and allow Zambian farmers to export so that they too can have more money in their pockets and out leader has heard and answered the plea. Millers have already made huge profits from the high prices of mealie meal so to hell with them.
It’s good news on the economy all the time now! Thanks PF for your hard work. Success.
Stop eating that maize Zambians so we export it!
Good for our farmers though the peasant farmers who work hard sell their maize at a very cheap price.
this is the way Zambia has to go grow its economy God has pleased us with fruitful land agriculture unlike mining will actually improve the lifes of people in rural areas ……..people always say zambia should be a food basket in africa lets do this right
That 1diot from namusa should now tell his govt to boycott zambian grains. Whoever talks to him tell him that he is stupid.
What is this African obsession with nshima ? Can’t we eat cassava , sweet potatoes , variety of nuts and arrowroots?
This is good progress but allow FRA or local cooperatives (or the agro dealers) to facilitate the activity so that the SS farmers in rural areas can access this development.
I agree 120% with “HH OVAL HEAD” to the extent that this NUMSA id.iot called Irvin Jim can go to hell with his threat to boycott Zambian products. As we keep HH in check, the Zambian Govt should fast-track the construction of road and railway line links to Angola, Botswana, Congo DR, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and the Great Lakes Region. This will protect our peoples from ravages of xenophobia executed by the ungrateful South Africans. I still clearly remember Jacob Zuma (the architect of xenophobia he engineered to embarrass Tabo Mbeki’s Presidency) as he publicly scoffed at the bad state of roads in Malawi. Hence the need to revolutionalise our agricultural and industrial base.
PF cannot revolutionise the road network after stealing $9.2 billion on invisible “massive infrastructure projects” . PF will never develop export routes because there are no PF voters on these routes. That’s why PF has concentrated on flimsy shanty roads, and not Chingola-Kitwe dual carriage way nor Chingola-Solwezi road.
Could we also make sure that all this maize is moved by Zambian transporters please
Export mealie meal please and not maize. Keep our millers busy. Job creation??? Here is your answer investment in maize milling plants
I regret paying for tidal for mwana wanga. The chap has been playing jayz new album full blast. Tidal is 9.99 dollars a month for those that don’t know. Many Zambians live on less than dollar. I keep telling the chap how lucky he is.
Strange acronym, I thought (ZCE) for Zambia Commodity Exchange would do the trick. The ZAMACE sounds like some strange Malaria course tablets or something. Just thinking.
Better statement would be the bteak up of amount of each grain grain available for export and the expected export market priec. Now you know why governmwnt hasnt announced purchase price for maize.. work out value of of US100 million dived by the amount of grain then the average is $261.34 per tonne some one is making money
Well done ECL and PF on this whole agriculture move. It has been supported well: and please let the Zambia transporters move the MAIZE up to Nakonde and tazanian transporters pick up from there. This will grow the transportation sector,create Jobs and retain the much needed dollar in Zambia. Unlike the fuel move only benefiting foreign Transport firms.
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Well done GRZ. Now the next step is go straight to encourage more production. Empower interest groups especially small scale farmer to produce more for export.