JOHANNESBURG(miningweekly.com) – Zambia’s Ministry of Mines, Energy and Water Development chief mining engineer Derick Chilumbu, said on Thursday that significant opportunities existed for investors to set up engineering businesses to supply the country’s mining industry.
Speaking at an investment symposium hosted by auditing firm KPMG, in Johannesburg, he stated that the mining industry procured equipment worth $7-billion a year from outside the country and that local fabrication and manufacturing facilities were needed.
He noted that local procurement would help ensure that Zambian companies and the citizens benefitted more from mining.
Also speaking at the symposium was KPMG Zambia senior partner Jason Kazilimani, who told delegates that, despite Zambia’s established mining sector, it remained a new frontier, as many of the country’s minerals resources were still not fully developed.
The latest United Nations and the African Union economic report on Africa has revealed that Zambia’s copper mining could continue to operate at current rates for the next 60 years, even without new discoveries.
The report, released in June, stated that Zambia’s current copper reserve base stood at 35-million metric tons and that the country remained Africa’s largest copper producer and exported $6.8-billion worth of copper in 2011.