As Bank of Zambia, we believe that the recent economic developments, such as, the attainment of single digit inflation for the first time in three decades in April 2006 and sustaining low-level inflation for nearly three consecutive quarters so far to November 2006 are supportive of this initiative. These developments also indicate that Zambia is able to rally foreign private capital to improve the domestic financing limitations and support efforts of encouraging faster economic growth, private sector investment and exploitation of the country’s huge potential in various sectors. Ladies and gentlemen, we also believe that events such as this complement the outcomes of Government’s economic reform agenda which in part is aimed at strengthening our country’s creditworthiness as demonstrated by the attainment of the enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) completion point in April 2005. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to elaborate. In order to strengthen and sustain our new status as a creditworthy economy following the attainment of the HIPC completion point, the Bank of Zambia, together with Government, is working on ensuring that our institutional arrangements are supportive of keeping the global investor audience, amongst others, informed about domestic economic developments transparently and on an ongoing basis. For instance, we believe that obtaining a formal sovereign credit rating would help us build part of the necessary institutional arrangements of keeping all stakeholders informed.

There is an overall consensus that digitalisation can potentially boost firms’ productivity through several channels. First, technical progress in the production of digital products leads to new, better and cheaper products generating productivity gains in the sectors producing these products. Second, other sectors may benefit from cheaper inputs encouraging a higher use of those inputs as investment goods, resulting in productivity gains for the firms in these sectors. Third, digital technologies enhance product and process innovations leading to new production and organisational processes, new business models and new or superior products. Finally, information and communication technologies (ICT) are seen as reducing the cost of sharing and acquiring knowledge, potentially increasing the diffusion of innovation and new knowledge. However, digitalisation may also entail some challenges. First, while some argue that digitalisation leads to more intense competition, others fear increasing market concentration in some sectors on the back of digitalisation2. Second, some studies find evidence that ICT and automation are related to labour market polarisation3, where mid-skilled jobs either lose value or disappear, while there is an increase in demand for high-skilled job-profiles linked to digital technologies. This can lead to more income inequality or at least to big transition  1  Goldfard, Avi and Catherine Tucker (2019). “Digital Economics”, Journal of Economic Literature, vol 57(1), pages 3-43 OECD (2018): “Maintaining competitive conditions in the era of digitalisation”. OECD report to G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. 3 Michaels, G., Natraj, A. and Van Reenen, J. (2014): “Has ICT Polarized Skill Demand?