By Gershom Ndhlovu
The United Liberal Party (ULP) has cautioned government not to celebrate the recorded trade surplus of about K753 billion which is from increased exports of raw metal products as at March this year but use it as leverage for the promotion of other production activities.
ULP president Sakwiba Sikota said that government should take advantage of the trade surplus by ensuring that it was not only sustained but also diversified so that a larger percentage could also include processing consumer and capital goods.
Mr Sikota called on government to take measures that would increase the share of processed goods from 6.6 percent of total exports to around 30 percent, saying what his party was proposing was a workable initiative that could benefit the economy and increase employment levels.
He said according to information obtained from the Central Statistics Office, the bulk of the trade surplus (75.1 percent) was from copper cathodes and some refined copper and that copper and other metal ores such as cobalt accounted for 19.3 percent of the total trade surplus attributed to raw materials.
“Similarly if government can support the non-mining industries to increase the volume of their exports by processing consumer and capital goods it could translate into thousands of jobs being created to meet increased demand. Relying on copper for the bulk of our exports is a risky business transaction that urgently requires to be resolved by supporting non-mining industries to produce high quality products for export,” Mr Sikota said in a statement to coincide with this year’s Labour Day. (Full Statement here)
He said as the nation celebrated Labour Day which falls on May 1, the trade surplus should also be viewed from a broader perspective than in monetary terms.
“It should be viewed not only in monetary terms, but because it also represents one of the ways that we can use to transfer semi-skilled labour to the modern production systems of processing raw materials to finished goods locally. Currently general trade in raw materials and refined metals account for over ninety percent of the trade surplus, this needs to be changed,” Mr Sikota, a State Counsel, said.
Government support to non-mining industries, he said would help the export economy to move from relying on general trade in copper, to providing rapid growth of the processing trade of non-metal commodities that could help to sustain the trade surplus for many years and increase demand for skilled labour.
“The trade surplus should be used to help create job opportunities for the thousands of un-employed University and College graduates around the country,” he said.
He suggested that government should also encourage the setting up of labour intensive industries to provide employment opportunities for the backlog of unemployed people and also to help broaden the tax base. Farming, agro-processing, small scale manufacturing and tooling should be among the priority areas that can help create employment, he said.