Zambia is now able to produce internationally competitive quality goods for the global market owing to the enhancement of standards in many areas, Times of Zambia reported Monday.

Zambia Competition Commission (ZCC) executive director George Lipimile was quoted as saying that the quality of many local products exhibited at on-going Zambia International Trade Fair in Ndola, the capital of Copperbelt province, are as good as the foreign goods, which means that Zambian manufacturers have make positive strides in improving the quality of the products.

He said in Ndola that small scale miners have also made progress in adding value to the gemstones by polishing and cutting the stones, a development that has made Zambian stones popular on the international gemstone market apart from the natural good quality of the local stones.

He said many new manufacturers exhibited at the fair this year and attributed the increase of the number of new manufacturing companies to the positive economic strides of the southern African country.

Zambia's manufacturing sector has been under extreme pressure in the last couple of years owing to a number of liberalization developments under regional protocols in both the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), which sees the influx of cheaper manufactured goods on the markets of Zambia, according to the newspaper.

Source: Xinhua