{"id":70503,"date":"2025-08-15T15:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T15:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/70503\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T15:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T15:26:07","slug":"three-problems-that-are-worse-than-taxes-and-corruption-for-zambian-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/70503\/","title":{"rendered":"Three problems that are worse than taxes and corruption for Zambian businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n        These obstacles topped the World Bank Enterprise Survey rankings in 2007, 2013, and 2019, considerably outweighing other issues, including high taxes, corruption, and skilled labor shortages.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The most current poll, conducted in 2019, indicates a significant increase in the proportion of enterprises reporting finance as their top limitation.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        In that year, 28.5% of Zambian firms identified access to credit as their main challenge, up from 18.1% in 2007.\n    <\/p>\n<p>        Zambia\u2019s business problems compared to the rest of the continent<\/p>\n<p>\n        This issue is especially serious when compared to regional and global rivals, with just 23.2% of enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa and 15.6% in lower-middle-income nations citing money as their top obstacle.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Electricity supply is still the second most significant hurdle, mentioned by 25.8% of Zambian enterprises in 2019.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        This marks a resurgence in anxiety following a brief dip in 2013, highlighting persistent concerns with electricity dependability.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The proportion is significantly higher than the Sub-Saharan Africa average of 12.7%, highlighting <a href=\"https:\/\/africa.businessinsider.com\/local\/lifestyle\/zambia-warns-dollar15000-us-visa-bond-rule-poses-unnecessary-financial-strain\/cmkr3cc\" id=\"3d8e2ca3-3da4-466c-b1ea-26fa74473108\" data-link-role-code=\"open_new_tab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Zambia&#8217;s<\/a> ongoing challenges with load shedding, infrastructure maintenance, and capacity limitations.\n    <\/p>\n<p>                    <img width=\"600\" height=\"350\" alt=\"Zambia electricity company, Zesco\" title=\"Zambia electricity company, Zesco\" class=\"image lazyloaded imgWithMetaData\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf8,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg'%20width%3D'600'%20height%3D'350'%20data-ring-placeholder%3D'1'%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" data-original=\"https:\/\/ocdn.eu\/pulscms-transforms\/1\/vryktkpTURBXy82YzNjOWEyYTQzNzcyYzJjMjc4ZGU4ZTM0MjQ1YmUzNC5qcGeRlQLNAljNAV7Cww\" fetchpriority=\"low\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>\n        While informal competition has improved since 2013, it continues to have a considerable impact on formal enterprises.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        In 2019, 12.8% of Zambian enterprises identified it as their biggest challenge, down from 22.6% in 2013, but still higher than the regional average of 10.4%.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The informal sector&#8217;s reduced operational expenses, tax evasion, and flexible labor arrangements make it more difficult for registered enterprises to compete.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The prevalence of these three challenges, particularly at higher levels than regional averages, demonstrates fundamental vulnerabilities in Zambia&#8217;s economic environment.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        Access to cheap finance is restricted, power outages disrupt operations and increase expenses, and informal competition reduces profitability for conforming businesses.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        To address these issues, coordinated policy interventions will be required, including strengthening financial markets to increase credit access for small and medium-sized businesses, investing in power generation and grid reliability, and putting in place fair enforcement mechanisms to reduce unfair competition from the informal sector.\n    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These obstacles topped the World Bank Enterprise Survey rankings in 2007, 2013, and 2019, considerably outweighing other issues,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-70503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}