By KENNEDY MUPESENI –
THE Zambia Federation Associations of Women in Business (ZFAWB) is pondering partnering with Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) to improve the standards of products produced by its members.
Executive director Maureen Sumbwe said the Federation was putting in place various interventions to improve the quality of products produced by members for them to access  regional and international markets.
“We are looking at partnering with ZABS to make sure that whatever our members and entrepreneurs are making, meet ZABS specifications.
“The Federation want to see how ZABS can come in and help in improving standards, we need to improve our products as opposed to us walking in the dark to look for the market, so, there is a lot of backlog we must do before accessing the regional and international markets,” said Ms Sumbwe,  when she appeared on the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation(ZNBC) TV One’s Business and Enterprise Programme on Tuesday night.
She said Zambia being landlocked, entrepreneurs have a unique position for the exports of goods and services hence the need to resolve issues of access to equipment and standards.
Ms Sumbwe  urged members in Zambia to stop individualism and work together to create prototypes for goods and services  where a group of people start actual manufacturing so that they meet the demand  at both regional and local levels.
“When we increase both the quantity and quality by working together that is when we can start thinking of the export market. The development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have come a long way. The population has been growing, there is more room for improvement,” she said.