Last week, President Rupiah Banda of Zambia began two copper mining projects by calling investors to provide more Zambians with employment. Zambia is rich with the industrial metal and despite recent local growth in the mining sector, foreign investors often overlook employing Zambians. President Banda stated that his country is on course to once again be a leading copper producer worldwide.
The President said that despite increase in production of the metal, not much progress has been made to locally add value to this commodity to enhance national benefits. He wants to see copper production create improved lifestyles for all Zambians. With these two new projects underway, that may soon become reality.
In Chililabombwe, just north of the capital of Lusaka, lies the Konkola Deep Mining Project (KDMP). Vedanta, an Indian mining firm, has a 79 percent stake in this mine. The company reported that the $674 million expansion of KDMP will allow outputs to increase from two to 7.5 million tons annually. The second project, the Nchanga Smelter, is just 15 miles away in Chingola.
Preceding these two projects by only one month was a Mazabuka nickel mine commissioned by the President. In Zambia, mining is considered an economic standard and its copper deposits get worldwide attention. In 2010, mining of this metal generated over 80 percent of the foreign exchange earnings of the country. That same year, Zambia received 15.9 percent of its GDP from the industrial metal.
Since the 1930s, the metal has been mined in the Zambian Copperbelt Province. Production peaked within the early 1970s and then low prices, lack of investment, and uncertainty regarding industry privatization caused it to decline. The industry was privatized in 1999, despite the reluctance of Zambia, and copper exploration and production subsequently skyrocketed. The first full year of privatization, 2001, marked the first year since 1973 that featured increased productivity.
