President Hakainde Hichilema has had a tight schedule at the 35th Ordinary session of the African Union Assembly in Addis Ababa Ethiopia.
After his well received maiden speech to the assembly from the Nelson Mandela Hall, the president maximized the opportunity by holding bilateral talks with several Heads of States.
The talks with strategic governments centered on bolstering peace, unity, trade and investment between and among the countries in the spirit of the Africa Union.
Mr Hichilema met the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Dr Abiy Ahmed, Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta, Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal’s Macky Sall, who is also the new AU chairperson, Ghana’s Nana Akufo-Addo and Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari among others.
The president when departing for Ethiopia at the airport made no secret that top on his agenda was finding ways of fostering trade with our neighbours as Zambia is a landlocked country with several borders.
What is remarkable is the president’s consistent message of changing the narrative for the continent tainted by stories of war, poverty and corruption by exploiting the development capacity of each nation as Africa is endowed with natural resources to drive the development agenda.
It should be comforting to every Zambian that the president is marketing the country at the highest level with individuals that make those important trade calls in a bid to grow the economy through trade and commerce.
Instead of making several trips to different countries to have these talks, the president utilized the opportunity in Addis Ababa to engage these leaders but also for Zambia to take its rightful place on continental matters like it was during the struggle. That was killing several birds with one stone.
Mr Hichilema told the assembly that Zambia was ready to host the mid-year coordinating summit this July. That will definitely be another opportunity to establish trade relations as the continent heads of States come to visit.
In his discussion with DRC President Tshisekedi, he made follow ups on his recent trip to that country which is one of Zambia’s main trading partners, seeking trade opportunities which would allow citizen-to-citizen transactions between the two countries with much ease. The two countries have already embarked on improving the border facilities to increase the volume of trade and ease the movement.
The president also held a meeting with African Development Bank (AfDB) president Akinwumi Adesina to bring him to speed of the economic agenda of the new administration and his Government effort on debt repayment while emphasizing on job creation.