Introduction
Tour Itinerary
Destinations
Lusaka Railway
COMESA
Central Bank
Issues
Theories
Worksheets
Resources

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No country exists in isolation. Despite being landlocked Zambia is actively involved in international trade. The benefits that countries have from trading goods and services across national boundaries in terms of increased opportunities for specialisation, greater competition and variety of choice are clear. Consider how dull your breakfast or evening meal might be if everything you ate came from your own country. Importing and exports goods and services are important determinants of our standard of living. They represent injection and leakages from the circular flow in income. For LDCs like Zambia its economic performance and development are inextricably tied into its dealings with other countries and multilateral organisations.

The purpose of this trip is to explore Zambia's trading position and the economic problems the country has faced and continues to face resulting from the movement of goods, services and capital across its international boundaries. The trip visits three destinations in Lusaka. The first visit takes us to the freight yard of Lusaka's main railway station where we find out what Zambia trades and the impact of this on its balance of payments.

Then we head to the headquarters of COMESA to consider reasons for Zambia's membership of two African trading blocs. Here we also consider the impact of the country's membership of the World Trade Organisation.

Finally we head to the Central Bank of Zambia from where you will consider the debt position of the country and some of the policies that the government have adopted to deal with this burden.

The route on this tour takes you around:

• Freight yard in Lusaka Railway station
• Headquarters of COMESA
• The Central Bank of Zambia

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Related to this field trip are the following pages that you may like to look at before starting the tour:

• Introduction
• An introduction to trade issues
• Tour Itinerary
• Theory
• Resources

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