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Zambia's Minister of Commerce, Trade, and Industry, Christopher Yaluma, is leading Zambia's delegation to the upcoming China International Import Expo. He says that compared to the first import expo, which was held last year, an increasing number of local companies will be taking part, especially small and medium enterprises.
"This time there has been a lot of interest from the SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) because they have now seen an opportunity where they can grow their small businesses into big businesses. The number of private sector following us has grown. So this will be bigger and I can assure you it will be bigger year by year because this is the only way we can let our small-scale farmers, small-scale industries and small-scale miners have their way into the international market."
Fourteen firms from Zambia took part in last year's expo. That number has almost tripled, with 40 firms registered to take part this year. Yaluma said the significant rise in the number of companies coming to Shanghai is due to the tangible benefits that flowed to the participants last year.
"We were privileged to be given a quota worth about 90 million U.S. dollars for honey. And they also extended us to supply them with pig trotters, which I think that was a very good start. The government of the Republic of Zambia does acknowledge this gesture and takes it up very seriously."
Yaluma hailed China's efforts in deepening its reforms and opening up, saying it provides plenty of development opportunities for other countries, including Zambia.
"I would like to thank the Chinese government for being considerate to allow Zambia to, in our way, penetrate their market with our products which I think means a lot to the Zambian people, to the Zambian government because that would create our more desired foreign exchange that would also help create employment for the people."
Zambia will be a guest of honor at this year's expo. China is currently Zambia's second largest trading partner. Trade between the two countries was worth more than 5 billion U.S. dollars last year, an increase of 34 percent on the previous year.
For the Beijing Hour, this is Gao Junya.
