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January 2 2018
GOVERNMENT has started implementing the €1, 400, 000 European Union-funded Southern African Development Community (SADC) Trade Related Facility (TRF) project for Zambia meant to among others, develop key position on trade.
The project with two-year duration is being implemented by the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry, after a successful signing of a grant agreement amounting to €1, 400, 000 with the SADC Secretariat and finalisation of an operational framework.
Other objectives of the project includes promoting industrial development of selected sectors, strengthening the institutional framework of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) and ensuring that Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) measures being implemented are not trade distorting.
It is also meant to promote trade facilitation through effective customs cooperation and implementation of the e-certificate window and reducing the asymmetry in knowledge on rules of origin.
Commerce, Trade and Industry Permanent Secretary, Kayula Siame, explained that among the specific interventions which the project would make include development of the requisite knowledge and capacity of selected farmer groups in dairy, aquaculture, rice and pineapple sub-sectors to attain international and local standards requirements.
Ms. Siame said Government was aware that the attainment of local and international standards was an indispensable ingredient for attaining industrialisation, trade competitiveness and consumer confidence.
“The project is also supporting the Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI) and Zambian Revenue Authority (ZRA) in automating their certification systems,
“At ZARI, Government has noted that the existing manual certification for plant and plant products through the Plant Quarantine and Phytosanitary Service (PQPS) was affecting trade,” she said.
Ms. Siame said the PQPS on average issued about 200 Plant Import Permits and about 600 Phytosanitary certificates per day whch exemplified the level of trade that happens around agriculture-related products.
She explained that owing to this traffic and looking at the global trends and the current models of doing business, upgrading the system from manual to electronic was required and the TRF project would contribute to bridging this gap.
“Similarly, the project will assist ZRA in initiating the process of upgrading the system for declaration and obtaining certificates of origin from manual to electronic. This is also aimed at increasing the efficacy and efficiency in administering certificates of origin to facilitate preferential trade,
“Further, it is also important to note that the project is also focusing on other burgeoning sectors that are key in the export diversification agenda such as - gold mining. It has come to the attention of Government that illegal gold mining and trade is on the rise,” Ms. Siame said.
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