Diversifying Zambia’s Economy with Post-Copper Era in Mind Lubinda Haabazoka, PhD Copperbelt University, School of Business, Kitwe

Paper organisation Section one – Introduction Section two – Background of Zambia’s Economic Diversification Efforts Section three – Overview of Zambian Economy Section four – Justification for Urgent Economic Diversification Section five - Recommendations Section six - Conclusions

Introduction Economic Diversification means introducing a wider and more diverse array of sources of wealth, income, government revenues, export receipts and employment generation. Most developed countries like the United Kingdom and USA have made their economies very competitive through economic diversification. Even industrialized countries like Russia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, who depend mostly on commodity exports for foreign exchange income, are also diversifying their economies by developing very competitive manufacturing and tourism industries. Unfortunately, Zambia like many developing African countries depends on the export of mineral resources as a source of income. This has led to poor economic performance due to underdevelopment of other sectors of the economy and fluctuations in commodity prices. This paper therefore outlines Zambia’s economic diversification record, emphasizes the need to diversify Zambia’s economy before finally offering recommendations on how best to speed up economic diversification.

Background of Zambia’s Economic Diversification Efforts

Current Economic Diversification Strategies

Overview of Zambia’s economy

Zambia’s Copper Dependency

Zambia’s Copper dependency

Structure of Zambia's public revenue

Structure of Zambia's public revenue

Justification for Urgent Diversification of Zambia’s Economy Increased unemployment level. Copper forecast is that the life span of mines on the Copperbelt will end in a few years from now. Effects of resource curse will get worse. Meaning that readily availability of revenue from copper has made the government too complacent to improve other ways of generating revenue. Zambia’s economy suffers each time there is an external shock to the copper industry (e.g. early- to- mid 1970s, late 1990s to early 2000s, 2008- 2009. Expanding human settlement into the copper mining areas implies that even if copper is not exhausted, it would not be possible to produce it. A lot of layed off workers are still on the Copperbelt because of house empowerment.

Recommendations Reduction of PAYE so as to stimulate consumption and also promote entrepreneurship Proper tax administration in the mining industry Creation of a copper stabilization fund whose main aim will be to cushion any price reduction in metal prices and also to provide for reserves for future generations

Algorithm of the organisation of the Economic diversification fund

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