Thursday, March 28, 2024

Investing in energy is key in Economic development- Chenda

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 Foreign Affairs minister Wylbur Simuusa speaks with Commerce minister Emmanuel Chenda shortly before President Michael Sata arrived in New York for the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly on September 23,2013 -Picture by THOMAS NSAMA
Foreign Affairs minister Wylbur Simuusa speaks with Commerce minister Emmanuel Chenda shortly before President Michael Sata arrived in New York for the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly on September 23,2013 -Picture by THOMAS NSAMA

Commerce, Trade and Industry minister Emmanuel Chenda has reiterated that investing in sustainable energy is the backbone of all economic endeavours which Zambia and other developing countries are engaged in.

Mr. Chenda, who represented Zambia at a high-level meeting on the side-lines of the on-going United Nations general assembly, told ZANIS in New York yesterday that all least developed countries have concerted their efforts toward developing sustainable energy as a spring bolt to their economic development.

He said industrialisation and job creation which the Zambian government has embarked on through industrial clusters will not materialise if there was no huge investment into the energy sector.

“Clearly, we have no choice but to go the same route, to focus on attracting investment both in the private, private-public partnerships as well as government itself to invest in the energy sector because without energy, you will not be able to manufacture, without energy, you will not be able to industrialise,” he emphasised.

The minister said the meeting gave him the impetus to scale up and lobby within government and seek other partners to invest in the energy sector for commerce and trade to take place smoothly in Zambia.

Mr. Chenda said a substantial amount of money from the euro bond was allocated to the development of the energy sector but pointed out that much more needed to be done.

He said while investing into the energy sector was important, the emphasis was to move away from fossil energy to renewable type of energy and to efficiently use the resource.

Mr. Chenda hoped that Zambia will learn a lot of economic lessons during the UN general assembly and the high-level meetings.

4 COMMENTS

  1. How did they find themselves attending this conference?Are they not an isolated state?Someones BP is shooting up..Or the international community is not listerning to someone.shout louder you haters

  2. Mr minister sir I find it very disappointing and annoying when such kind of issues are not addressed with great concern back home. Our national power grid needs to be upgraded and make it smart. smarter grids help the consumers of power to sell it back with a profit(good business), this is very much possible in countries like Zambia where we have abundant sunshine. And this issue of load shedding will be history, since with smart systems, people will be able to buy less power, with their use of solar panels generate and save more. This will even help Zesco since their main task will be more to deal with supplying power to the industries, hence lessening the overload of power systems.
    This can be achieved if stopped politicking too much and start working serious.

  3. Hon. Chenda must understand clearly that investment in sustainable energy at commercial scale is something that needs full govt participation due to the risk factors associated with amortization on longterm investments, especially in view of the energy “tariffs”.
    To date, the Kabompo Hydro Project proposed by CEC & partners is stalled, without govt trying to engage the promoters in a bid to realize this viable project. These ministers must learn to understand govt’s frail policy framework before assuming that nothing has been tried before. There’s plenty of documents in your PS’s files, go through them and question yourselves before you come out to bluff!

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