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Economic Dependence and the Development of Industry in Zambia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

This article examines aspects of Zambian industry, particularly the difficulties caused recently by its high level of dependence. Around 1975, problems of output and employment became acute, and the manifest cause was insufficient foreign exchange. Copper sales still provide almost all of Zambia's foreign exchange; the price fell dramatically in 1970, and recoveries throughout the decade were short-lived or partial.1 At the same time, Zambia's major industries – mining, manufacturing, and commercial farming – have developed with a crucial dependence on both imported inputs and expatriate skills.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

page 297 note 1 In no year, up to 1977, has the proportion of Zambia's foreign-exchange earnings supplied by copper fallen below 90 per cent. But as a result of the low prices throughout most of the 1970s, the foreign-exchange assets of the Bank of Zambia have steadily declined, from K271 million in 1970 to K38 million in 1978. In February 1980, K1 = £0·59.

page 297 note 2 See, for example, Elliott, Charles (ed.), Constraints on the Economic Development of Zambia (Nairobi, 1971)Google Scholar.

page 297 note 3 Seidman, Ann, ‘The Distorted Growth of Import-Substitution Industry: the Zambian case’, in The journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), XII, 4, 12 1974, pp. 601–31Google Scholar; and Bhagavan, M. R., Zambia: impact of industrial strategy on regional imbalance and social inequality (Uppsala, 1978)Google Scholar.

page 298 note 1 For more detailed accounts of industrial development in Zambia, see Michael Faber, ‘The Development of the Manufacturing Sector’, in Elliott (ed.), op. cit. pp. 299–322; Young, Alistair, Industrial Diversfication in Zambia (New York, 1973), ch. 1Google Scholar; and Baylies, Caroline, ‘The State and Class Formation in Zambia’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1978Google Scholar.

page 298 note 2 See the Presidential interview, reported in the journal, Indeco, Enterprise (Lusaka), 4, 12 1977Google Scholar.

page 299 note 1 Young, op. cit. p. 231.

page 300 note 1 Elliott, op. cit. p. 4.

page 300 note 2 While the volume must be imputed because of the effect of inflation, the trend for imports to rise in value probably does reflect a general increase in their volume, at least up to 1974.

page 301 note 1 Using the breakdown of external trade provided in the Monthly Digest of Statistics (Lusaka), crude materials, oils and fats, chemicals, machinery, and transport equipment are classified as producer imports, while food, beverages, tobacco, and manufactured articles are regarded as consumer imports. This breakdown, while it seems to provide a fairly accurate distinction between the two main types of imports, is not completely consistent. For example: manufactured articles include semi-finished inputs to industry (which should be classified as producer goods), transportation equipment includes private motor cars (which should be classified as consumer goods), and oil imports have been left out of the calculations. On the whole, producer imports have probably been substantially underestimated, which would increase the trend towards compression of imports.

page 301 note 2 This major change in Zambia's pattern of imports was pointed Out by Ndulo, Manenga, in ‘Import-Substitution and Zambian Manufacturing Growth’, University of Zambia, Lusaka, 1977Google Scholar. Other scholars have not recognised this trend. Seidman, loc. cit. p. 621, criticises as insufficient the attention paid to ‘altering the composition of imports to support the kinds of manufacturing industries which might spread productive employment’, while Bhagavan, op. cit. p. 30, Stresses that luxury sectors are favoured over producer goods for mass consumption industries.

page 302 note 1 Source: Monthly Digest of Statistics (Lusaka), passim.

page 304 note 1 Source: calculated from the Monthly Digest of Statistics, xv, 1–3, January–March 1979, Tables 1 and 11.

page 304 note 2 The employment figures in this section are taken from the Monthly Digest of Statistics, although it is far from certain that they are accurate. Even internal consistency is doubtful, as a comparison of time-series in different volumes reveals. However, the broad picture they provide of employment in total, and in each industrial sector, is probably valid.

page 305 note 1 A similar analysis is provided by Shaw, Timothy M., ‘Zambia: dependency and underdevelopment’, in Canadian Journal of Afrwan Studies (Ottawa), x, 1, 1976, pp. 322Google Scholar.

page 305 note 2 Seidman, loc. cit. p. 618.

page 305 note 3 Bhagavan, op. cit. p. 51.

page 306 note 1 Ibid. p. 34. Bhagavan concludes that ‘there is simply no industrial activity worth the name in the whole countryside proper of the entire country’. See also Seidman, loc. cit. p. 604, and Young, op. cit. ch. 9.

page 306 note 2 Seidman, loc. cit. p. 605.

page 307 note 1 Source: Monthly Digest of Statistics, passim.

page 308 note 1 Source: calculated from ibid.

page 308 note 2 Seidman, loc. cit. pp. 603–4.

page 308 note 3 Faber, op. cit. pp. 301–5, examines the reasons for the last rate of growth achieved immediately after independence, and concludes that they were mostly the results of circumstances which would not recur.

page 309 note 1 Seidman, loc. cit. p. 606.

page 309 note 2 Bhagavan, op. cit. p. 30.

page 309 note 3 Ibid. p. 26.

page 311 note 1 Seidman, loc. cit. pp. 655 and 630, respectively.

page 311 note 2 U.N.D.P./I.L.O. Management Development and Advisory Project, Zambia Managerial and Training Needs Survey (Lusaka, 1977)Google Scholar.

page 311 note 3 See Kalimukwa, M. A., Mkunika, F., and Mwiya, M., ‘Zambianisation on the Copper Mines: the impact of the Zambianisation Committee’, in Fincham, Robin (ed.), Employment in Zambia (Lusaka, 1979)Google Scholar.

page 311 note 4 The main areas of conflict and consensus between the mining companies and the Government have been identified by several writers, although they disagree over how their findings should be interpreted. Thus, Skar, Richard L., in his Corporate Power in an African State: the political impact of multinational mining companies in Zambia (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1975), p. 184Google Scholar, stresses the ‘uncompromising loyalty’ of the companies to the Government over issues of general policy, including the partial nationalisation of equity, and disengagement from the white South. But he puts less emphasis on operational conflicts, such as the refusal of the companies to place metal marketing under state control, and to expand output through increased investment. By contrast, both Fry, James, ‘Economic Independence in Zambia’, in African Social Research, 1972Google Scholar, and Simwinga, George K., ‘Corporate Autonomy and Governmental Control in the Zambian Public Sector’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1977Google Scholar, stress precisely these latter issues in arguing that the companies retain control of policy in mining operations.

page 311 note 5 Tate and Lyle, for example, own 47 per cent of shares in the Zambia Sugar Company, and remain firmly in control although the plantation and sugar refineries could probably be run by Zambians.

page 312 note 1 See Kalimukwa, Mkunika, and Mwiya, loc. cit.