 visitors, important visitors, academicians, intellectuals, also recognize the public sector, representatives that are here, governor of the central bank, and the obviously diplomatic co, our cooperating partners that are here, the private sector, private sector, our private sector, and if there are any of the private sector colleagues that are visiting, we recognize you as well. And indeed, if I may say, just distinguished ladies and gentlemen, the media of course is recognized. Let me express my delight, our delight as the government of Zambia, but more importantly the people of Zambia that put us in these public offices, extremely delighted on their behalf that we're having this second, if you like, platform on our economic growth agenda. Yes, the economic growth forum, but really it's about our economic growth agenda, which we have set out very clearly, even in our days in opposition, we're very clear that the economy, its growth, and working with the private sector as one, unlike them against us, will be the center really of our government, because we know that if the economy is functional, its growing is expanding, like we've dubbed this year, the year of economic expansion, four jobs for our youthful population, four business opportunities expansion, four social support ultimately in that order, carefully structured in that order. Economic expansion, four jobs, four business opportunities, and for sustainable social support, that's the way it works. So we're very delighted that IGC, IMF, you are working with us on this central theme of our government. Thank you for the work you've been doing behind the scenes. I had a meeting with my colleague, the IGC upstairs before coming down here, very good session, and I see his presentation, very summarized presentation, in runs the theme that we discussed, the issues we discussed upstairs. And yesterday I had a meeting with the IMF colleagues. I believe we had a very good meeting. Again, in there we focused on the things that we need to do, given the challenges that we face, global challenges, regional, Africa regional challenges, and the country challenges, we still want to keep, and we emphasize to keep our eyes on the ball to grow this economy for obvious benefits. So I'm very delighted that these meetings are going on. I know the colleagues have been meeting other members of our government, ministers, permanent secretaries, and others. And of course, the Bank of Zambia, and I do believe the private sector is getting engaged as well by the colleagues themselves so that they can get a feel of what we are as a society, as an economy, as a community. I think that's very important to us. Unlike some governments before us, we have no issues that the IMF can sit down with the bankers, the private sector, so that you can hear each other out, and then we can sing from the same hymn sheet. And to us, that is very important, extremely important, and that we encourage that. And the important thing is to say things as they are. Sometimes there's noise, as the menace of finance put it, where people claim that their west is better than our best. It's difficult to understand. So if their west was declining the economy, growing from 6% to minus 2.8%, last year we grew by 4.3%, so numbers don't lie. But we don't want the experts, we the business people, the experts, to basically get taken away by the noise. We need to stick to the issues. We need to stick to the facts, the parameters that will help us solve our problems. So having said that, I think I've, in a way, emphasized the importance of working together. Doesn't matter which angle we come from, let us work together for the common good, for the common thing. And I have heard a couple things that my previous speakers have indicated, and I think I agree with them by and large. But let me just emphasize the importance of whatever expertise we have, whatever role we are performing. Macro stability is very important as a given to assist us achieve our agenda. Macro stability is very important. We need stable, first we need inflation which is basically acceptable. We have set ourselves our targets, we know that. And I think there's a bit of some slippage there. Last year by and large we are single digit, just around nine, now we're clipping over to 13%. We want to keep this under control. We want to keep interest rates attractive to business and for businesses to borrow knowing that they can do something gainful, something commercially gainful and be able to service the debt. So the cost of money is important. I've said this several times, cost of capital, long-term, medium, short-term capital is very, very important for our growth agenda, for our economic expansion agenda. Exchange rate stability is important too because it just supports this environment of the three or so variables, support us deeply in our growth agenda, economic expansion agenda. But this macro stability is only as important as it affects positively. It allows us to work on sectors, agriculture. Prof has said it well, we have a lot of room, opportunity to improve our productivity from the same hectarees that we are working on. And I want us to focus on that as you deliberate in this hall, from the IMF angle, World Bank angle, from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Water, Ministry of Water is integral to ensuring that WAMA itself plays its role. The Minister of the Green Economy is very important to make sure Zema does not stand in the way of us taking decisions that allow us to improve our productivity. Given climate change, one of those issues, irrigation. So we want to make sure we utilize our water with our resource before it gets into the Indian Ocean and then becomes international waters and then we become salty for that matter. So while it's still fresh water, we want to utilize it in our country, generated here. Some of it ends up in the Congo River from Lake Meru, Ruapula River. So it's very, very important that we drop the macro issues that we want to be stable into the sectors that will help us drive growth. That to me is important that we are contextual all the time, we're deliberate all the time, even in meetings like this. It is important to recognize that, yes, we've dropped now, very unfortunate, but we can flip the coin, do two things, one, feed our people. There's no question about that. We have to readjust what we do, our budgets, our own domestic envelope, resource envelope and our partner's envelopes to be able to support the population that responded to our call to grow their own food. If it wasn't the drought this year, we were going to produce a lot of agricultural produce, which would have also assisted in pushing our economic growth agenda, as most of our people are engaged in agriculture. So, but the coin flipping I'm talking about, it now allows us the rare opportunity to drive resources away from consumption areas into the agriculture for irrigation for higher productivity and we don't have to cut more trees to create more fields. The same field will give us nine, 10 tons per hectare of maize as opposed to three tons, or under three tons. The same field will give us the second crop, possibly a third crop. These must be conscious things that we take into account when we deliberate in a meeting like this. And it will show us the importance of working as one team. I say to my ministers that they must find it normal to have coffee in each other's office, sitting with their permanent secretary and their host, minister and permanent secretary, and director or procurement colleague. It should be normal to solve or to deal with one particular issue that helps to unlock the growth opportunity that we have as a country. So, I believe it is also important that we cannot ignore mining. We want diversification, but mining describes us as an economy, but not the way it has happened over these years. Chingola, Kalulushi, Mufrila are not looking better despite producing so much copper over the years, over 100 years. This government wants to turn things around so that the communities can see value into their kitchen, into their sitting room as producers of copper. So is Northwestern province. So is almost now in our country, all the provinces of our country are able to engage in some mining. But what we want is legal mining, one, two, mine not only to extract, but to process, to beneficiate, to value art. That again triggers our economy expansion agenda. Colleagues sitting in this hall, doesn't matter who you represent, who you work for, yourself or somebody, we want to pull ourselves into these sort of deliberate conversations. I see the ZDRI commissioner general and I was watching him on the program. I do watch what your people do in the media and made a very good point out of how many 200 plus mining license, only how many are contributing to tax revenue? How many? Only seven. And we are mining country. Mines must contribute to growth of the economy, to job creation, to fair treasure revenue. So with the numbers we have, the issue is that what are we doing? Since mining is chosen here as one of the critical sectors. Not to over tax. Remember, if I'm a cattle man, I was brought up in a cattle crowd myself, born in the cattle crowd. If you over milk your cow, the calf will die. And you'll have no more milk anyway. That's important, but the balance is critical. Cannot be right to have those sort of numbers. But more importantly, it's just not the revenues for the mine and therefore the economy coming from extraction. We want to see us getting involved in the trade across the spectrum. We want to see, as I said, more value addition, beneficiation, because it adds on to economy. Professor and I, the two professors and the minister and Fubi were discussing upstairs. What is driving the Indonesian economic expansion? Mining is one of them, the way they're treating their resource endowments from extraction through to processing, value addition, and producing final products. Why should we import copper wire to allow this light to brighten this room? Why? So this house must, when we answer those questions, we'll be able to contribute, to act on those issues, to contribute to economic expansion and to create more jobs. And copper wire to not be just a hose all over the show. I talked about mining legally, mining with correct methods, technology, equipment. I just wanted to complete that point. But also in off-tech, so that even our small artisanal miners, once they mine legally and will not allow them to mine illegally, then they have an off-taker that pays them a fair price for what they produce, which goes into a processor. I think this house should be discussing those issues because, Prof, that's the economic growth. That's where it will come from. That's where the jobs will come from. Minister, we discussed already upstairs. So I did mention also the issue of our energy profile. With one, two droughts, we created food insecurity. We created energy insecurity because we had, we are hugely hydro. Time has come for us, whatever sector we are discussing. The Mingomba project, for example, the largest fine of copper over 100 years. We want to open that mine. Where is the energy? Because we're reliant on hydro. Where is the energy? It's not there. Installed capacity is there, but the battery is not there. Caribbean of dam batteries is going down. So really, alternative energy becomes important in a room like this, when we discuss issues of economic growth. I'm drilling things that are obvious, but I'm angling them in a way that we are conscious as we have conversations of the things we need to do and do differently, but better. That's the point. So I know our academicians, all of us, will say evidence-best decision is the way to do it. I think we have enough evidence. We have enough benchmarking. As I said, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, we are discussing upstairs. So we can't be talking of these things over and over. What I expect, we expect out of this conference, out of this forum, is that we can agree almost non-contestable measures that are critical once implemented and we must implement together our economy going, despite the drought, despite other shocks. It's an opportunity to clean up our unplanned settlements. It means investing in those areas. When we invest in those areas, it means economic expansion will come. It means jobs. We do the roads, drainages, water supply, sanitation, shut down shallow wells, shut down people at trains. There will be some investment going in there. So the minister of finance touched on the argument that free education has brought problems. As I said earlier, don't listen to those arguments. Those are arguments to reinforce bad behavior of the past. If we don't invest in skills, this expansion we're talking about of the economy, who will work on the economic sectors if we don't have skills, artisanal skills in particular. And we have responded by allowing guys who cannot go to university like many of us did. Very small number, privileged number. But we need the plumbers, we need the carpenters, we need the, if you like, worlders. And this economy must provide support for that. These such conversations must provide deliberate, agree on deliberate measures that will lead to our skills-based development, which will support the very economic growth agenda. And some chairman, you need those skills in your factory. Sometimes you have to go to Mozambique. It's true. All Zimbabwe to get those skills. But we have our own warm bodies that need to acquire those skills, and we should do that. Not just for government, but also for the private sector. ZAM itself, ZAMI National Farmers Union itself, the bankers themselves must understand the importance of these artisanal skills. Because if your clients who lend your money are not able to work their projects properly, it will create a larger impairment. In your balance sheet. There's no question about it. I can confidently talk about, I'm looking at the upside, chief executive there. We discussed these things when I used to be chairman of this parkless board here. And I'm sure you've advanced those discussions now. That it's, a client who is good and is capable of utilizing the credit to have extended is what you desire. Because it reduces your impairment and it makes you look good. So we are in one situation here. I have taken enough time. Let me conclude by saying, we would like to see clarity of outcomes from a platform like this. At least generally things that are agreed, that need to be isolated. And then implementation, implementation, implementation. Tell us in government the things that stand in your way. Tell us. We've set up the presidential delivery unit to address those issues. We've set up the public-private dialogue forum. I don't know if Andrew Chippuende is here in order to bring the private sector to, if you like, a live relationship with this government as one team. But we know that that's not enough. If there are other measures you are able to suggest that will assist us to get the implementation of the agreed remedial measures, we are happy to hear those. And we are happy to take them on board for one purpose only, to get things done, to grow our economy, to create jobs, business opportunities and for social support. For the old, the weak, the retired, the differently-able, and indeed for children, early childhood development, which we were discussing yesterday, somewhere. Thank you for your kind attention.