By KENNEDY MUPESENI –

STANBIC Bank Zambia managing director Charles Mudiwa has said the country needs a diversification model that will guide the private sector, especially banks, in making investment decisions.

Mr Mudiwa said Zambia needed to develop a clear direction to enable players to start financing and developing infrastructure in the economy.

“We all need to diversify, but we need to get to a point where we just decide we are diversifying into agriculture or energy, telecoms and so on and start building a clear diversification model and get the banks start to start financing that particular sector,” he said.

Mr Mudiwa said this during the third economic panel discussion on challenges and potential for economic development in Zambia organised by the American Embassy and WECRETE Zambia in Lusaka.

This would enable banks and the private sector develop an infrastructure that allows targeted diversification to happen.

He said there was need to identify a sector whose products could compete regionally and globally.

“We need to look at what it is that we can say is going to compete at the global stage and produce this thing that will be a global commodity, that we can compete and we need that product to be recognised within the region and globally, otherwise we will forever be operating in the peripheries of world and regional trade,” Mr Mudiwa said.

He said the banking sector had confidence in the economy taking a long term view of the country as the reason they finance long term projects.

“We are financing malls whose recovery periods range from 10 to 20 years. We have confidence in the country for 20 years, that is how long the private sector and banks take a view of the country,” Mr Mudiwa said.