LUSAKA, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Bolstering intra-Africa trade will enhance retention of wealth within the continent and provide a base for further investment in productive sectors and accelerate efforts to industrialize, a senior Zambian government official said on Thursday.

Christopher Mvunga, Deputy Secretary to Cabinet, said promoting intra-trade will go a long way in helping Africa's industrialization agenda, adding that Africa does more trade with the rest of the world than with itself.

He said figures show that intra-Africa trade in 2016 was 62 billion U.S. dollars while Africa's exports to the rest of the world amounted to 288 billion dollars and imports from the rest of the world amounted to 415 billion dollars.

"While Africa is endowed with abundant natural and mineral resources, it is the least industrialized continent in the world, reflected in the dominance of commodity exports.

"The continent has enjoyed strong economic growth for almost two decades. However, the continent has not seen a commensurate rise in industrialization resulting into tangible value for our people," he said in remarks delivered at the on-going 53rd Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank Group in Busan, South Korea, according to a statement.

The annual meetings which run from May 21 to 25 are being held under the theme "Accelerating Africa's Industrialization."

According to him, the theme for the Annual Meetings was most appropriate because it comes at a time when the future of the African economic growth was solely tied to accelerated industrialization and hoped that the meetings will develop a way forward on Africa's industrialization.

Africa, he said, needed to tackle challenges that have contributed to the poor state of industrialization such as inadequate growth enhancing infrastructure particularly power generation and transport, the market size, poor technology, mismatch and shortages of skills and tariff and non-tariff barriers to exports, among others.

He further called on African countries to remove bureaucratic guidelines and procedures in order to enhance "Ease of Doing Business" as well as ease of movement within the continent. Enditem