By MAIMBOLWA MULIKELELA –
ZAMBIA will not attain the projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of more than seven per cent and end year inflation of less than 6.5 per cent for 2014, the Zambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ZACCI) has said.
In the 2014 budget, the Government planned to achieve real GDP growth of ab 6.3415 ove seven per cent, create at least 200,000 jobs and attain end year inflation of no more than 6.5 per cent.
ZACCI president Geoffrey Sakulanda said Zambia would not be able to meet the projected targets because of unplanned activities that were undertaken during the year.
In the course of the year, the Government borrowed US$1billion from the international market, accelerated the Link Zambia 8,000 project and creation of more districts, which led to increased productivity and rise in revenue collection.
“The macro-economic key performance on the citizen point of view showed a lot of activities but from the national point of view we sort of overshot our own projections and created a problem on inflation and GDP. Our GDP growth will be lower than what was targeted and inflation is going to be higher than what was projected,” Mr Sakulanda
said.
In going forward, ZACCI expressed satisfaction that the economy would remain on course in 2015.
“The election has created a lot of public interest. They are not supposed to be very significant unless there is a change of Government, we expect significant changes and we are optimistic that the liberalised economy will be maintained going forward,” he said.
He said there was need for the Government to increase private sector participation in order to further stimulate economic growth.