Zambia’s economy demonstrated resilience in 2024, achieving 4% growth despite challenges such as drought and power shortages. This performance was largely supported by strong gains in the mining and services sectors. While agriculture faced setbacks, its relatively small share of GDP meant the overall economic expansion was not severely affected.
The latest Zambia Economic Update (ZEU) paints an optimistic picture for the coming years, forecasting real GDP growth of 5.8% in 2025 and an average of 6.5% for 2026–2027. This outlook is underpinned by the continued momentum in mining, a rebound in agriculture following improved rainfall, and an uptick in tourism activity. Part of the projected growth in 2025 will come from base effects as the economy recovers from the severe drought of the previous year.
The report recommends measures to strengthen economic performance, including fully transitioning to the e-voucher system to boost agricultural productivity, promoting private-sector-led financing, enhancing competition in the energy sector, improving revenue collection, and maintaining tight monetary policy to keep inflation expectations anchored.
A special focus of this ZEU edition is on how Zambia can leverage its energy transition minerals (ETM) for long-term economic transformation. It highlights the need for comprehensive reforms to increase ETM production, such as identifying resources, ensuring clean and cost-effective power, improving transport and logistics, building workforce skills, and managing environmental and social risks.
The report also emphasizes the importance of maximizing fiscal gains from ETMs by strengthening revenue management and aligning resource income with sustainable, intergenerational development goals. Furthermore, it calls for adding value within the copper value chain and tackling key barriers, including limited access to raw materials and finance, an inefficient investment climate, inadequate electricity supply, and high trade and transport costs.
