DEPTH Analyses: Making exports more competitive to drive growth in Zambia

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is expected to boost trade and investment among African nations, affording Zambia a significant opportunity to enhance its export competitiveness and drive economic growth. Zambia aims to expand sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, and services through supportive business development policy, but several challenges persist, including high debt, weak infrastructure, overreliance on copper exports, and limited utilization of trade agreements.

To fully leverage the AfCFTA, Zambia must finalize the domestication processes and improve policy implementation, while also promoting private sector engagement and investing in critical infrastructure and skills development. Also, Zambia must enhance its collaboration with international stakeholders—and build on its history of trade liberalization reform—to create economic zones to foster competitive exports, sustainable growth, and integration into regional and global value chains.

This policy brief reviews the significance of export diversification and competitiveness as a pivotal engine for transformation in Zambia and offers recommendations that, collectively, will help Zambia benefit from a window of opportunity and a pathway to improved export competitiveness.

It is part of a series analyzing the progress African countries are making toward transforming their economies, as measured by the African Transformation Index, within the context of ACET’s Growth with DEPTH framework. It draws insights from a multi-country case study on the implementation of AfCFTA protocols, which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.