By HELEN ZULU –

ZAMBIA will continue to be a dumping ground for substandard finished products unless the citizens start owning the production process from extraction to actual manufacturing.
The Zambia Institute of Marketing (ZIM) has said Zambians should start focusing on the manufacturing sector other than the extractive industries to avoid being exploited.
ZIM president Evans Muhanga said Zambia risked remaining a dumping ground for sub-standard finished goods for a long time to come if it did not address the matter.
Zambians have allowed themselves to be exploited by concentrating on extractive industries instead of the manufacturing sector thereby letting resources to be siphoned out of the country in their raw form only to return as finished products at a great cost.
He said at the 18th annual marketing conference and awards gala media breakfast launch in Lusaka yesterday that Zambians needed to get involved in the whole process from extraction to finished goods to benefit from the wealth of the nation.
“We have continued to generate wealth for other countries at the expense of our own people who have continued to wallow in abject poverty due to lack of real employment.
“Value addition translates into so many things, one of them being employment generation which we have continued to generate for other countries,” Mr Muhanga said.
He said the trend must be reversed but that could only be possible if the focus was shifted from being a nation of traders to being a nation of manufacturers, putting up processes to transform the raw materials into finished goods.
There is need to put process to transform the materials into finished products for the local people to realise the true value of the resources.
The conference will be held under the theme: “Understanding the Role of the Marketing Process in Value Addition and Employment Creation.”