On a sectoral basis, pledges in manufacturing were US $ million, real estate (US $ million), agro-processing (US $ million), services (US $ million), agriculture (US $ million), tourism (US $ million), construction (US $ million), ICT (US $ million), and mining (US $ million). 27. The pledges when fully executed are expected to generate 22,532 jobs (1,726 jobs: third quarter 2010) with the highest contribution from services at 12,763 jobs followed by agro-processing at 5,860 jobs. The rest were manufacturing (1,882 jobs), construction (847 jobs), agriculture (397 jobs), tourism (343 jobs), real estate (247 jobs), ICT (157 jobs) and mining (14 jobs). 28. Investment pledges for the year 2010 increased by 138.6% to US $ million from US $ million recorded in 2009. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 3 29. Preliminary estimates indicate that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose by 7.1% in 2010 from 6.4% in 2009. This outturn was well above the target of 5% announced by the Minister of Finance and National Planning in his 2010 Budget Speech. 30. The GDP outturn was largely attributed to the growth in the agricultural, construction and mining sectors.   The 2010 agricultural harvest was the highest recorded in history, having produced over 2.8 million mt of maize; while the mining sector also benefitted from higher copper prices and production levels.   The growth in the construction sector emanated from increased residential, commercial and public infrastructure construction projects across the country by both Government and the private sector. 2  Lusaka, Livingstone, Mfuwe and Ndola.

Domestic credit, comprehensively defined to include foreign currency loans, increased by 5.4% to K14,915.1 billion as at end-December 2010 (September 2010, growth of 3.1%) from K14,153.8 billion in September 2010. This outturn was mainly due to increased lending to the private sector (including public enterprises) and Central Government by 5.7% and 4.6%, respectively. On an annual basis, domestic credit growth at 22.9% was 9.4 percentage points higher than the 13.5% recorded in September 2010. 10. On a sectoral basis, households (personal loans category) continued to account for the largest share of outstanding credit, accounting for 26.8% [26.3%] 1 in December 2010. The agricultural sector was second at 17.6% [17.1%], followed by manufacturing 12.7% [13.4%], wholesale and retail trade 10.8% [12.0%], real estate 6.2% [5.4%], construction 5.8% [6.0%], transport, storage and communications 4.7% [5.3%], community, social and personal services 3.7% [2.5%] and mining and quarrying 3.2% [3.1%]. Interest rates 11. Yield rates for Government securities trended upwards, extending gains from the previous quarter as investors sought to consolidate positive returns over the inflation rate. Thus, the composite weighted average Treasury bill yield rate increased by 58 basis points to 8.2% while that for Government bonds rose marginally by 10 basis points to 11.3%. 12. The stock of Government securities outstanding increased by 5.6% to K9,940.9 billion at the end of the fourth quarter from K9,411.2 billion in the third quarter. This was mainly accounted for by an increase of 13% in the amount of Treasury bills outstanding against a modest growth of 0.2% recorded for Government bonds.