Indian Private Companies and Zambia’s Economic Development, 1964-2015

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue IV, April 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186

Indian Private Companies and Zambia’s Economic Development, 1964-2015

Euston Kasongo Chiputa
Department of Historical and Archaeological Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia

Abstract:-Most scholarly writings on the presence of business people of Indian origin in Zambia have tended to emphasise their role in commerce; retail and wholesale trading. However, since Zambia’s liberalisation of the economy and introduction of plural politics in 1991, there emerged a paradigm shift towards other economic sectors. Business people of Indian origingravitated towards manufacturing, farming, agro-processing, water exploration and drilling and, by 2015, construction and real estate development. Their contribution emerged as one of the major pillars of the post-1991 liberalised Zambian economy. Since then these firms were making steady but significant inroads into Zambia’s agricultural and emerging industrial sectors. There were private Indian business people and Zambians of Indian origin who invested in crop and livestock farming. There were also some companies that engaged in agricultural plant machinery and equipment merchandising and production of agro-chemicals. Zambia’s largest steel plant commissioned in 2010; with both direct and indirect linkages to agriculture is owned by one of Zambia’s largest manufacturing companies, Trade Kings. Zambians of Indian ancestry have a significant shareholding in Trade Kings. The only Coal powered electricity generation plant (300 megawatts) situated in southern Zambia, commissioned in 2016 was developed by an Indian-owned company. In the last decade, most private companies involved in underground water exploration and drilling for irrigation and for domestic consumption are of Indian origin. Up to 2015 the Zambian economy witnessed increased investments in the construction industry and real estate development by investors of Indian origin or Zambians of Indian descent. This study attempts to investigate the emergence, growth and contribution ofIndian private companies to Zambia’s economic development from 1964 to 2015.

Key Words: – Private, Development, Economic, Investments, Companies.

I. INTRODUCTION

Scholarly discourse on the presence of Indian private companies in Zambia has tended to emphasise Indian people’s role in commerce; retail and wholesale trading. Lewis H. Gann, BJ Phiri, Friday Mufuzi and others have written about Indians and Indian traders in both colonial and post-colonial Zambia. These writers show how Indians played a role in providing trading services, and to the extent to which they went in establishing a niche for themselves in trade-related commercial activities in colonial and post-colonial Zambia. Some writers, for example Biswas and Dubey emphasised Indian’s role in Africa’s economic landscape for purposes of India’s energy security and a market for India’s goods and services, yet others, like Fantu Cheru and Cyril Obi, have compared India’s economic performance and influence in Africa with that of China. This paper takes a divergent perspective by looking at India’s economic footprint on the African landscape through a micro-prism of Indian private companies and their role and impact on Zambia’s economic development between 1964 and 2015.

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