Zambia’s Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane has said that the economy experienced a 3.1% increase last year but that the country should target more growth.

The Southern African country managed its annual inflation at 9.9% in December 2022 from 16.4% in December 2021. But according to Musokotwane, reducing inflation to about 6% – 8% in the shortest possible time remains the goal.

While the country’s capital, Lusaka, is the fastest growing city within the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the economy of Zambia has remained one of the fastest growing economies in Africa with a Labour force of about 6.906 million. 54.8% of this figure is employed by the agriculture sector, 9.9% by industry, and 35.3% by the services sector.

Copper mining and processing, construction, foodstuffs, beverages, chemicals, textiles, fertilizer, horticulture, have been some of the country’s mainstay for years with mining and processing contributing over 85% to the country’s exports, agriculture employing more people than the mining sector, and tourism as one of the basic and rising sectors in the country.

Zambia has several self-supporting sources of electricity, including renewable energy options, biomass, and coal which are yet chiefly underexploited. It is currently ranked 8th in Africa, 5th in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and 4th in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) in terms of the ease of doing business. It is also ranked the 8th most competitive country in Africa on the Global Competitiveness Index.

Recently, Zambia was ranked 7th by Forbes as the best country for doing business among 54 African countries.

While the government is working on other important indicators of good business environment, it has succeeded in significantly reducing the cost of doing business in the country.