The Green Party has suggested that Zambia must take advantage of high copper prices on the London metal exchange and allow the mining sector to export more of the red metal.
Party President, Peter Sinkamba says this will jumpstart the economic recovery and growth as the mining sector is the largest contributor to the country’s economy.
In an interview with ZANIS in Ndola yesterday, Mr Sinkamba said Zambia should now start exporting more of its minerals so that it maximizes on the high prices of the commodity.
Mr Sinkamba has also observed a marginal stability in the Zambian Kwacha against major currencies in the first quarter of the year 2021.
He attributed the apparent stability of the Kwacha to the high prices of Copper on the international market.
“Copper prices have gone up on the international market, this means that Zambia must produce and sell more minerals to prevent the Kwacha from depreciating”, he said.
And Mr. Sinkamba has blamed the outbreak of the COVID-19 as the main reason the kwacha has depreciated, explaining that the pandemic has made the country to import more than it has exported, thereby weakening the local economy.
The Green Party should look after the environment, but I don’t hear them say anything about that. Expansion of copper exports is fine, but not with the polluting methods going on today. Green Party, it’s time to become GREEN!
Look at this man ever since he had Stephen K’s ministerial salary there has been no sense coming out from him …has he not read Bloomberg and seen what is happening at KCM, we dont even have windfall tax to take advantage and then there is the controversial sale of Mopani mine by the corrupt Lungu govt where we benefit nothing for the next 10 years.
*…..ever since he paid Stephen K’s ministerial salary ….
Please govt stabilize the market price of soya beans as soon as possible. It’s an election year and Indians have taken advantage of the situation. Soya beans now are trading around ZMW10/kg. This will push the price chicken feed to ZMW 140-160 and cooking oil will be now trading at ZMW 100/Ltr.
Ministry of agriculture move in
Copper prices will remain high and will even reach 15000 dollars per tonne within 3 to 4years. During this time the Government should jump-start manufacturing industries whose products are made of copper, industries manufacturing electric cables, motors, generators. Further, Connect farms throughout the country to power line and let them use electric tractors manufactured within the country. Reduce use of diesel in the mines and encourage use of electric powered vehicles and locos. Zambia railways should start using electric powered locos and not diesel, start manufacturing electric boats and easy transport on our lakes and encourage tourism. Aim at manufacturing turbines for our hydro powers. Simply put, when the price of copper is low, you can stockpile and export final products whose…
Aim at manufacturing turbines for our hydro powers. Simply put, when the price of copper is low, you can stockpile and export final products whose price will unlikely go down [insulate Zed from external factors] . I forget to tell you that plats, cups, office table surfaces in clinics and hospitals should be copper plated, it is part of medicine. HH, here is part of the winning song. ECL is everyday becoming smart and relevant to Zambia, most likely he will sing the song. This is how high prices of copper will uplift the poor. Talking about debts is a bad song.
We also have gold. Soon we wontt need that old outdated imperial London stock exchange, like our late brother gadaffi preached.
I thought he was going to say price of cannabis has gone up.He has always been a
Campaigner for growing cannabis.
Is stock market a computer? Yes.
Is this a computational phenomena? Yes.
Is stock market trading computational phenomenon? Yes!
If you agree to any of these then Bloomberg is right.
PF time out, Because you don’t believe in RFID.
Since PF took power, stock market stagnant
Some govt official last week talked about industrialisation. You can only reap from industrialisation by creating beneficiation industries around the crude product of copper. Why most African countries like Zambia dont develop is because they not only are one product countries, they dont exploit the product by variously improving it before exporting it.
ZAMEFA has died so does PF have a plan for its replacement/s? We should not pay lip service to things like diversification and industrialisation. Lip service is politics of Africa in the 60s. By now we should have learnt our lessons and should be acting. Ba PF Walk your talk
Mr. Sinkamba is so selflessly sincere. Zambia’s copper and economy are for all Zambians, not the Patriotic Front. Independent forecasts say the red metal may soon hit $15K per ton. We can’t wait for UPND to be in power for Zambia to take advantage. What if Hakainde Hichilema loses? Time is now.
@ 10 Dont bother I now see why KZ insults you in diaspora. Please come back home and get your facts right or simply use your fingers not to blog but just google ZAMEFA website. What is wrong with you?
Petros Sinkamba how does the export of goods be affected by the outbreak of Covid 19 pademic be related to import and depreciation of Zambian Kwacha. We can’t increase our copper production because the mining investors were arm twisting the govt in terms of taxation . Meantime the investors continued exporting copper even now they are still reaping from price boom. What Petros is forgetting is that investing in a coppermine takes more years to start real production. The price of copper will continue rising on the LME with manufacturing of electric cars to be the in thing. For Zambia to benefit from such a boom there is a must need to start manufacturing cables or value addition instead of the traditional way of exporting raw copper. Zambia has always been an import oriented country. I…
This is all in our hands we should be fundamentally careful about what we are trading on, we shouldn’t get complacent and excited about it. we should first, I think to acknowledge the benefit of it, whether we are gaining from it or not and above all we should also not sale everything to the foreign countries, (“RESERVES” IS THE WORD) cautiousness will play an important role in the ppl involved in doing negotiation otherwise if they are not careful we’ll end up losing everything to the foreign companies. Mind you!!!!, there is a scramble for Africa going on among western countries and others everyone wants a piece of African pie!! so we have to be tactical also on these issues and determine our own destiny!!!
The heading and content do not match. Was hoping to read how KCM and Mopani Copper mines were going to increase copper production since they are controlled by government! For sure without government takeover of mines copper production was going to reach more I million tonnes of finished copper.