Abstract
Zambia’s development strategy has targeted a rapid scale-up of public investment to address infrastructure needs. This has resulted in large fiscal deficits, financed by nonconcessional debt and the accumulation of domestic arrears, adversely impacting the private sector. Recent efforts to adjust the fiscal stance have delivered some improvement in revenues, but deficits have continued to rise following faster-than-budgeted execution of foreign-financed capital spending. With the anticipated growth dividend yet to materialize, the debt burden has risen sharply, resulting in currency weakness and rising local borrowing costs that have further pushed up the interest bill. Reserve coverage has fallen to 1.7 months of imports.
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