“Without enlarging the size of the economy, it would be impossible to create jobs that the country desperately needs to address youth unemployment and generate revenues to support government’s social welfare programmes,” he added. 

Delivering the 2015/16 budget speech, on Monday, Mr Matambo said it was for this reason that growth and economic diversification should remain among the country’s economic growth priorities.

Economic growth, he said could also be generated through improving total factor productivity and increasing the productive human and capital inputs.  Whereas the country has performed reasonably well in increasing factor inputs, the minister said growth in factor productivity has been a challenge in the recent years.

“In this regard, improving productivity must remain a priority for driving economic growth and ensuring that the economy performs at its potential capacity,” he highlighted 

Furthermore, Mr Matambo said a recent challenge to the promotion of growth and economic diversification had been the declining total factor productivity in the domestic economy, especially labour productivity. 

Therefore, he said government would continue to put in place measures to promote productivity that include; reforming the country’s education and training system, improving work ethic through training the workforce, as well as reviewing labour legislation with a view to promoting efficiency in the labour market. 

Such labour market reforms, he said would also assist the economy to transit from mineral-led to a knowledge economy.  To further improve on total factor productivity, he said government was implementing public sector reforms, enhancing research and development, and developing appropriate human skills.  ENDS