The Mauritius Economic Development Board has called on the Zambian government and business community to develop a Special Economic Zone with Mauritius government where the two countries can set up factories and expand the shared business opportunities.
Speaking during the Mauritius – Zambia Business Exchange exhibition, Mauritius Africa strategic Business Unit Manager Rajan Subbamah said Mauritius did a research on the 55 African countries and discovered that the country was competitive with only 12 African countries and Zambia happen to be one of them.
Subbamah told the Zambian Business Times – ZBT that Mauritius is a small country with less land compared to Zambia which has a lot of land with full potential to develop. “Mauritius has a lot of manufacturing companies but do not have our own workers, so we opt to import workers from our neighboring countries. Therefore, we want to make trading easy by partnering with the Zambian people, Zambian businesses and form strong joint venture businesses”.
“People around the world do not know that Mauritius deals in manufacturing and so when we show them our products, they think as though we just exported the products from Europe because we manufacture high quality products,” he added.
Subbamah says he would like to see more joint ventures between Zambianand Mauritius businesses and in the long term, they wish to see more investment into Zambia, as Zambia has a lot of land and people full of potential.
And Zambia Development Agency ZDA – ZEDEF Fund Manager Dr. David Chewe said Mauritius and its entrepreneurs have demonstrated several products that can be sold in Zambia and in the COMESA region. He said that the opportunities that exist between the two countries has the potential to boost the economy of the country as Mauritius manufactures quality products.
“We have seen Mauritius show case good quality products that can be sold in Zambia and the COMESA region. We are also looking at partnership on how Zambia can partner with the Mauritius to improve the Zambian manufacturing sector,” he said.
