Zambia's state investment arm be operator of mines in future
Zambia’s state-owned investment arm will run mines as an
operator rather than a minority investor in future investments, a executive
said on Sunday, as the government seeks a more active role in mining assets it
holds.
ZCCM-Investment Holding (ZCCM-IH), controlled by Industrial
Development Corporation (IDC), is a mining investment arm of Africa’s second
largest copper producer.
“What we have asked ZCCM-IH to do is too seek its own mines,
do explorations and develop mining operations,” Mateyo Kaluba, chief executive
of IDC, said in a statement.
ZCCM-IH should have a higher stakes in mining ventures of
the future, Kaluba said.
Mining, which contributes more than 10% to Zambia’s economy,
is also the nation’s largest foreign exchange earner.
ZCCM-IH has minority shares in mines including First Quantum
Mines’s Kansanshi Mine and Glencore’s Mopani Copper Mines with highest stake in
Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) where it has 20.6% and Vedanta Resources 79.4%
“We are not averse to them getting into partnerships but
those partnership must be balanced. Most of the partnerships that ZCCM-IH has
right now are not balanced because the stakes are very small minorities,”
Kaluba said.
Lately, ZCCM-IH has ramped up its exploration efforts and
have commissioned new mines in gold and manganese.
“We are confident that we’ll see it taking stronger
positions in copper mining and many other minerals in the country,” Kaluba
said.
It has already done so in gold and manganese mines.
Kaluba was on a tour of a new manganese mine - Kabundi
Resources - owned by ZCCM-IH in central Zambia.
Kabundi Resources, which has started its first phase of
mining, aims to reach an output of 240,000 tonnes of manganese ore annually
once commercial production is achieved.
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