Zambia treads cautiously on EPAs
Published On April 13, 2015 » 2883 Views» By Administrator Times » Business, Stories
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By MAIMBOLWA MULIKELELA –

ZAMBIA and some other African countries are finding it difficult to sign the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) before fully industrialising their economies.
Commerce, Trade and Industry director in charge of industry Tobias Mulimbika said the country was taking the negotiations for the EPAs cautiously to have an all-inclusive deal
with the European community.
In an interview in Lusaka yesterday, Mr Mulimbika said it was important for Zambia to add value and industrialise our economy to take advantage of the trade opportunities.
He said Zambia would want to have a more comprehensive negotiation with European community for it to benefit from trade and technological transfer.
The negotiation of the EPAs started in 2000 to, among others, liberalise trade between European Union countries and the Economic Community of West Africa States.
The EPAs offers Africa countries 100 per cent access in the European market while it offers only 75 per cent access in the Africa market which includes free quota and tariff.
Mr Mulimbika said to date only four countries, which include Mauritius, Madagascar and Zimbabwe, have signed a trade in service with European Union.
“We are taking the EPA negotiations very cautiously of course as a community there is a deadline to have a certain number of countries to conclude their negotiation with the European Union and that deadline is June 30, 2015.
“Zambia is still at that level where it is taking it cautiously. We want to have a more comprehensive negotiation with them so that we can also benefit in the sense that they should open up their market to
export our goods and services to them,” Mr Mulimbika said.
He said Zambia also wanted to benefit from the technological transfer.
“We don’t believe that just trade will help us and we also need to think about infrastructure and able to offer goods and services to the people rather than taking raw materials into Europe,” he said.

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