LUSAKA, Sept. 2 -- Zambia has successfully passed an audit conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialized UN agency that establishes international aviation standards, to assess the safety of the country's aviation sector, a senior government official announced Monday.

Minister of Transport and Logistics Frank Tayali said preliminary results show that Zambia achieved a 73.48 percent effective implementation rate, surpassing the East and Southern Africa average of 60.71 percent and the global average of 69.4 percent.

He said that the results highlight the significant progress made through reforms and preparations in the country's aviation sector, especially in contrast to the 2009 audit, where Zambia scored only 35.35 percent, leading to a ban on its planes flying into certain airspaces.

"I wish to thank the Civil Aviation Authority, together with its board, for meticulous preparation for this particular audit. I think that we needed to ensure that Zambia comes out of that which we faced in 2009," Tayali said in a statement.

He observed that this achievement is a testament to the country's ambition to become a transport and logistics hub in the Southern African region.

The minister also said that Zambia's aviation sector now has no safety concerns, indicating strong compliance levels and boosting confidence among stakeholders.

Tayali said that the audit covered not only infrastructure but also the operational systems within the sector. He assured that the government will continue improving operations to attract more international airlines, which had previously avoided the country.

A team from ICAO with its headquarters in Montreal, Canada, visited Zambia last month to conduct the universal safety oversight audit program under its continuous monitoring approach, marking the second such audit since 2009.

  - Xinhua