Trade minister Lucia Iipumbu undertook an official visit to Zambia from 21 to 24 February 2023 for bilateral consultations with her counterpart Chipoka Mulenga, the Zambian minister of commerce, trade and industry.
The visit sought to explore export market access opportunities and strengthen existing bilateral cooperation between Namibia and Zambia in the areas of trade, industry and investment. The meeting was instrumental in supporting and collectively driving enhanced trade relation agenda between Namibia and Zambia with leadership and political resolute.
Namibia and Zambia are both Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states and have signed and ratified the SADC Protocol and SADC Free Trade Area. The bilateral engagements yielded tangible results for mutual benefit, agreed emphatically on trade relations and adopted concrete decisions for implementation.
Some of the practical areas of cooperation include reviving the Joint Trade and Investment Committee (JTIC) to strengthen bilateral cooperation on trade, trade-related and investment matters.
“Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) are an impediment to trade and, therefore, countries involved will practically facilitate resolution to improve and eradicate NTBs, and to smoothen trade across the countries. As part of enhancing bilateral trade, Namibia sought support from Zambia to have the 45 000-ton sugar quota allocation prioritised to the SACU non-sugar producing countries to aver the recurrent sugar shortages experienced during certain parts of the year,” said the trade ministry spokesperson Elijah Mukubonda.
He added that some other interest areas are to expedite the establishment of the One-Stop Border Post (OSBP) at Katima Mulilo/Wenela border post to promote trade between the two countries and increase volume of trade and investment, as well as to enhance collaboration between private sector agencies from both countries to venture into facilitating trade and smooth interactions.
Moreover, the aim is for Namibia and Zambia to facilitate trade through improved market access of products, such as sugar, salt, fish, livestock, meat and meat products, wheat, maize, mealie meal, bran, soya and soya products, sorghum, mangoes, avocados, honey, tomatoes and other products.
“The visit was one of the many initiatives to enhance trade and trade- related activities, strengthen expeditious cooperation, promote investment opportunities with each other and look at facilities to trade with one another. Namibia and Zambia are good neighbours politically and good neighbours economically. The ministers undertook to have further trade engagements through the JTIC as well as to implement the undertakings made,” said Mukubonda.