LUSAKA, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Zambia needs to take full advantage of China's goodwill and technological progress to spur its economic development, a local expert said here on Thursday.
Zambia has not done much in that aspect, said Misheck Mwanza, the immediate past director of the Zambia Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies and a former Zambian diplomat.
While acknowledging that China's support of infrastructure development was expected to trigger investment in various sectors such as manufacturing, the expert said in an interview with Xinhua that the Zambian authorities have not fully engaged China to ensure technological transfer and promote industrialization.
"In Zambia there has been so much talk about value addition, but in concrete terms nothing is really happening. Take, for example, tomatoes, mangoes, guavas, pineapples and other farm products that go to waste," he said.
There is a need to seek Chinese assistance "to start processing these commodities into juices and other finished products," Mwanza said.
Zambian authorities, he said, need to engage their Chinese counterparts in assembling some processing machines in the country so as to supply cheaper machinery to the locals, adding that this will be another way of encouraging technology transfer and job creation.
There was no doubt that China has achieved much in terms of development since the founding of the People's Republic of China 70 years ago, he said.
He said that a huge and enlightened population, with a vibrant middle class, have been essential to China's tremendous development.
The expert urged Zambia and other countries to emulate China's policy consistency for their development path. Inconsistency in policies is a drawback for national development, he said.
