Speaking at the on-going Africa Mining Indaba being held in Capetown South Africa, Mr Yaluma also took the opportunity to dismiss remarks made by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, that Zambia was experiencing inconsistent mining policies.

Hon Yaluma said that the country had attracted some of the world’s largest mine houses which was a good demonstration to its favorable investment climate.

And Hon Yaluma has stated that government developed a new mining policy in 2014, to create a competitive, thriving and sustainable mining Industry that benefited both investors and the people of Zambia.

He said the policy aimed at increasing private investment in the sector and increased participation by Zambians as owners, suppliers and as employees.

He said the new policy was aimed at achieving increased revenue to government and promoted transparency and accountability through close monitoring of mineral production.

Hon Yaluma also said the new policy also aimed at spurring growth in the industrial, manufacturing and other sectors.
He said also helped revise the main legal framework; the Mines and Mineral Development Act no. 11 of 2015.

He said the new policy also helped establish new mines through exploration
He also said government had intensified efforts in oil and gas exploration and was calling for investment in the sector.
He said Zambia had a favorable investment climate in Zambia had this was confirmed by existing mines and and green field investments in copper production that had risen to 770,597 in 2016.
He said the country was also promoting diversification in the mining sector by focusing on the gemstone (emeralds, amethysts, tourmaline), industrial minerals(limestone, granite, phosphates) and energy minerals (coal and uranium).

He said government had raised efforts to ensure that there was adequate investment in the energy sector which was critical to the mining sector.

Luanshya Mayor Nathan Chanda has assured ex-miners who were sent on forced leave when Baluba mine closed in 2015, that all of them will be re-employed.

Speaking today on YAR FM radio programme dubbed ‘Social Charter’, Mr Chanda said all the miners who were put on forced leave and never resigned will all be recalled.

Some of the miners will be employed by Baluba mine itself , while others will be employed by China JCHX, the new mine contractor .

The contractor will ensure that priority is given to Luanshya residents except for specialized jobs that need expertise labour, he said.

The Luanshya Mayor stated that over 700 miners will be employed by the contractor adding that the contractor was currently recruiting miners.

Over 1,000 miners, who were sent on forced leave after Baluba mine was closed in 2015 in Luanshya fear that they might not be re-called following the announcement of the re-opening of the mine in Luanshya soon.

CNMC Luanshya Copper Mines has announced that in partnership with China JCHX will re-open Baluba mine this year .

The Mine management has promised to give priority to miners that were sent on forced leave in 2015.

But some ex-miners have complained that China JCHX is currently advertising for job vacancies and engaging individuals who are not ex-miners to attend interviews.

The ex-miners have since appealed to government and the unions in the mining sector to intervene and ensure that all the ex-miners are re-called.

ERB Chief Executive Officer, Langiwe Lungu said the program will address the challenges faced by operators in the industry in meeting the required specifications towards provision of quality energy products and services.

Ms. Lungu said the fuel marking exercise will commence effect from February 15, 2018, and has appealed to all players to adhere to the Zambian petroleum products quality monitoring guidelines to avoid their licenses been revoked.

Ms Lungu was speaking during a press briefing in Lusaka today.

She stated that inconsistencies in sales statistics not only deprives government of huge revenues through evasion of tax but also causes legitimate industries to contribute to poor quality fuel.

Ms. Lungu further said contamination of fuel by adding sub-additives and rampant dumping of smuggled fuel compromises fuel quality on the market hence the need to control, minimize and eliminate fuel adulteration.

She added that marking will be undertaken by Authentix Inc. by dosing an appropriate marker directly in fuel tanks prior to dispatch into the domestic market and for exportation.

Ms. Lungu said the board has set up a fuel marking and monitoring unit within the Directorate of Technical Regulation to monitor the concentration of the marker throughout the supply chain.

She pointed out that marking will be done at loading designated government depots and will be extended to imported petroleum products destined for local market including low Sulphur diesel for mine at discharge depots.

Ms Lungu said the exercise will be coupled with stringent punitive measures against culprits so as to enforce its mandate to ensure the availability of quality petroleum products on the market.

Fuel marking is the process of adding an invisible bio-chemical substance to all legitimately sold fuel in the country and subsequently monitoring the marker concentration levels.

By Economic. Governance

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

Although the origin is contestable, what I remember is that it is the Chinese mainly that are accredited with the famous saying, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Its meaning is that China should not just give aid or physical infrastructure of roads and others to Zambia, one of its key trading and development partners in Africa and perhaps the only African country with the highest population of the Chinese. That is fine with me, after all, the US, the greatest nation on earth was built by migrants. Foreigners can bring something unique and complementary in thinking, innovation, technology and know-how. But this often happens when the host country has put policies in place to ensure that they don’t repeat what local Zambians can easily and effectively do, and when Zambians themselves prove that they can do it and only need outside complementarity.

China has overtaken the US in exports of manufactured goods

Zambia has a bilateral trade relationship with China that dates to many years. Although partnership in trade is one activity that has made nations in Asia expand wealth and reduce poverty, it is largely because this trade has shifted from primary commodities to manufactured goods. China, with a share of exports from 3% in 1995 to 17% in 2016, and the US from 12 to 8% respectively, the Asian giant has overtaken the US in exports of manufactured goods to the world as Table 1 below shows. In absolute terms, China exported almost $2 trillion and the US $954 billion in 2016. One explanation is that in 2001, China joined the WTO and found import tariffs at most favored nation level had dropped due to global trade liberalization, and Africa was a major supporter of its accession although today a major loser from its membership. But the most outstanding reason is that China was readier to take advantage of market access provided by WTO than Africa was in terms of production and ability to export quality manufactured products in big quantities. China learnt early that overly-reliance on exports of primary commodities is no longer sustainable in world trade due to the continued threats arising from global downturn in prices, a threat that Africa and Zambia have lamentably failed to address in the last fifty years of independence despite many public pronouncements of diversification.

Table 1: China’s share of exports of manufactured goods in the world in percentages

Source: Unctadstat

Zambia’s trade with China in manufactured goods is lopsided in favor of China

But the main point of this article lies in the Table below which shows the growing unevenness in trade, especially in manufactured goods between Zambia and China. As in the colonial master-Zambia trade configuration which was skewed in favor of the former extracting raw materials from Zambia and in turn exporting manufactured goods to the colony, our so-called South-South friends picked up from where the colonial master left and continue to exploit our resources in the same manner. China exports only manufactured goods to Zambia, in 2016 amounting to $461 million compared to Zambia’s exports to the Asian country of only $ 11 million as Table 2 below shows. On the other hand, Zambia exports only primary commodities amounting to $ 1 billion in 2016. That is not the Africa we want. The Africa we want is one that ensures that South-South cooperation supports Zambia to upgrade its trade with China in manufactured goods.

Table 2: Exports of manufactured goods to China and Zambia in $ millions

Source: Unctadstat

In terms of trend, Figure 1 below helps the reader to understand that over the last twenty years, China’s exports of manufactured goods to Zambia has been growing steadily until 2015 when it went down to about $518 million.

On the other hand, Zambia’s exports of manufactured goods to China slumped from about $93 million in 2012 to a shameful level of only $11million.

Meanwhile, Zambia’s exports of primary commodities shows an upward trend, from about

$ $3 billion in 2013 before tumbling down to $1 billion in 2016 as Figure 3 below shows. If exports of 2013 had been maintained, more revenue would have been made. Unfortunately, demand in China for copper went down, and this is a warning of over-reliance on one export market and more importantly on exports of primary commodities. If today China decides that it has had enough copper from Zambia and stops buying, I am not sure what alternative ideas Zambia has apart from slipping further into China’s shadow.

History will remember KK for his diversification drive

On 20 July 2009, when Kenneth Kaunda, former President of Zambia received his achievement award from the African Heritage Society in recognition for his contribution to the liberalization struggles in Southern Africa, he had one important message for African countries, “Diversify your economies.” He lamented, “African countries have remained underdeveloped due to a number of factors some of which are due to the manner in which Africa is conducting its trade with the rest of the world.” In fact, even within Africa. He said, “Africa’s trade with other countries is lopsided as it is to a large extend only exporting raw materials. Africa needs to develop its manufacturing sector to enable it attain sustainable comparative advantage and compete highly with the rest of the world.” He said further, “We cannot remain competitive in this world if we do not have an educated populace and a well-trained manpower to run factories, mines, hospitals and schools. We can only compete by developing our human resource to provide necessary skills in order to enhance our productivity.”

If action speaks louder than words, I would be the first to admit that despite his policy short-comings, such as nationalization, Kaunda’s rule is the only period that was characterized by an upsurge in manufacturing in Zambia. I have presented these figures before in previous articles. But we all remember factories like the Mansa batteries, Kafue textiles, Mwinilunga apples, Kapiri glass, Rop cooking oil, Fiat assembly in Livingston and others. As we learn from today, even the US is moving back to nationalization which we discarded in Zambia. If we had continued, perhaps by now we would have produced a pool of skilled Zambians in manufacturing.

The Zambia-China knowledge partnership is perhaps more important

Perhaps the leadership knows better the proceeds of the Zambia-China development partnership. In addition to the unfair trade relationship, one common to the common man is the investment in road and football stadium infrastructure. But perhaps Zambia needs more knowledge infrastructure partnership with China than physical ones which, after 50 years of independence we should be able to do on our own like Ethiopians. Zambia needs to have a plan with China to get help on how to develop human skill for innovations, technology transfer and general manufacturing. China has shown the world that is has abundant knowledge in manufacturing especially, for Zambia, textiles and clothing. China is supporting Ethiopia, Rwanda and other African countries in this sector on a very large scale. If we cannot acquire manufacturing knowledge from the Chinese while they are with us, eating with us, drinking with us, and even marrying our daughters, when and where will we take advantage of this opportunity? According to Fernandez-Stark, Frederick and Gereffi, authors of ‘The Apparel Global Value Chain’, “Apparel production is considered an important catalyst for national development, and often it is the typical starter industry for countries engage in export-oriented industrialization due to its low fixed costs and emphasis on labor-intensive manufacturing. Low cost countries like China, India and Bangladesh – are emerging as leaders in the lower-value assembly segments of the value chain.” Even rich countries like the UK, Germany and others used textiles for industrialization. Of course, there is stiff competition now after the expiry of the quotas in the WTO but if others are making it, Zambia can also make it.