a tripartite report - Unctad

ZAMBIA
petroleum products, fertilizer, foodstuffs, and
clothing. 107 Some of the country’s main trading
partners are the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland, South Africa, Malawi, Germany,
Zimbabwe, Italy, Burundi, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, the United Republic of
Tanzania, Holland, and Japan.
bia,
the Zambian economy grew by 7.6 per cent
in 2010 compared to a growth of 6.4 per cent in
2009 108 . That growth was driven by increased output
in mining and quarrying, transport and com-
cent at the end of 2010, down from 9.9 per cent in
December 2009. 109 The World Bank in 2010 named
Zambia as one of the world’s fastest economically
reforming countries.
Zambia is a member both the Common Market
for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and
the Southern African Development Community
(SADC), which are two of the major regional economic
communities (RECs) in Africa. COMESA
is a free trade area and common tariff structure
with nineteen member States stretching from
Libya to Swaziland, including the Indian Ocean
island States of Comoros, Magadascar, Mauritius,
and Seychelles. 110 The headquarters of COMESA
are in the Zambian capital of Lusaka. SADC is an
inter-Governmental organization whose goal is to
further socio-economic cooperation and integration,
as well as political and security cooperation
111
Zambia remains one of the most politically stable
countries in both COMESA and SADC, and Af-
Box 2: Economic History of Zambia: 1960s to 2000s
Post Independence Boom
93
rica as a whole. Zambian politics take place in a
framework of a presidential representative democratic
republic, whereby the President of Zambia
is both Head of State and Head of Government in
a pluriform multi-party system. The Government
exercises executive power, while legislative power
is vested in both the Government and Parliament.
Zambia declared independence from the United
Kingdom on 24 October 1964, and Dr Kenneth
da,
of the socialist United National Independence
Party (UNIP) governed the country from 1964 until
1991. Zambia was a one-party State from 1972 to
1991, with UNIP the sole legal political party. From
1991 to 2002, Zambia was governed by President
Frederick Chiluba of the social-democratic Movement
for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD), during
which the country saw a rise in social-economic
growth and increased decentralization of Government.
Mr Levy Mwanawasa was the third President
of Zambia, who presided over the country
from January 2002 until his untimely death in August
2008. He is credited with having initiated a
campaign to rid the country of corruption, and
increasing standards of living from the levels left
by the previous President. The fourth President of
Zambia was Mr Rupiah Banda, who had been Vice
President during the Presidency of Mr Mwanawasa.
The current President is Mr Michael Chilufya
Sata of the Patriotic Front (PF), who won the elections
in September 2011. On his election, Presi-
corruption in the country.
The economic history of Zambia from Independence
up to the 2000s is traced in Box 2.
Following Independence, the Government of Dr Kenneth Kaunda adopted a socialist economic model with an
African context. There was large-scale nationalization of the mining industry and the creation of large State-owned
conglomerates or parastatals such as Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM). A considerable degree of central
planning involving the setting up of a large civil service followed as the Government aimed to ensure self suf-
exploitation grew as copper prices increased. In the ten years following independence, the level of real GDP grew
at 2.3 per cent per annum.
Economic Decline (1975-1990)
The relative prosperity of the 1960s did not last. A number of external factors outside Zambia’s control hit its
economy. The fall in world price of copper and a decline in the quality of its ore exposed the country’s over-
ZAMBIA