By STEVEN ZANDE –
SIAME
THE Government has reversed the ban on the importation of vegetable and fruit products.
Commerce, Trade and Industry Permanent Secretary Kayula Siame said her ministry had engaged stakeholders to find means of increasing production capacity of local farm producers to enable them feed the local and foreign demand of fresh produce.
“We have since put in place a number of measures to try and support the fruit and vegetable value chain because as you know the Government has prioritised agriculture so it’s necessary that we support the producers to help them adequately supply the market,” Ms Kayula said.
The PS said Zambia was signatory to binding trade protocols in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and that a ban would have been accompanied by a Statutory Instrument (SI).
She said, at a joint Press briefing with her Agriculture counterpart Julius Shawa that the Government was keen to expand the agriculture sector by providing linkages for them to feed the market that had resulted from the expansion of chain stores in various parts of the country.
Ms Kayula said the Government was in consultation with various stakeholders from the informal and informal sectors, and representatives from chain stores to find ways in which local farmers could increase participation in supplying farm produce.
She said the Government was concerned that products that should be supplied to the market should be of high quality standards that met the demands of the market.
Mr Shawa said the Government was promoting local farmers in a bid to help foster crop diversification, which was also important to the economic diversification of the country’s economy.
The Government was implementing measures to enable small and medium scale farmers take advantage of the prevailing market to improve production and consistency in terms of supply to the local and foreign market.
Agriculture Minister Dora Siliya would next week hold a meeting with her Finance and Commerce counterparts, the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) and various stakeholders in the agriculture sector to discuss matters of trade of farm produce.
