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Zambia, still high cost mining land locked destination – Chamber of Mines

• Organizations such as the European Union have created a patch of strategic minerals they would like to secure.
• Hydro-Carbon funding and investment has become very difficult.
• The country has to lower its average tax rates even further.

Zambia Chamber of Mines says it suggested “we” must be specific that the main thrust of mineral exploration will be copper, battery minerals, platinum gold minerals Uranium and rare earths on promotion of traditional and non-traditional Minerals in the 8th National Development Plan with regards mineral and petroleum exploitation and exploration.

Speaking on Consideration of the 8th National Development Plan before the Parliamentary Select Committee, Chamber Chief Executive Officer Sokwani Chilembo explained this is where opportunities are for Zambia as it is endowed with what the world requires for its biggest technological shift in the next 100 years and where donor support and funding is available.

Mr. Chilembo noted organizations such as the European Union (EU) have created a patch of strategic minerals they would like to secure indicating that the country must be very sure that it is talking about the aforementioned specific minerals.

He added the country must also argue its case to be considered as tier 1 country for the EU from being considered as a Tear 2 opportunity country.

“We feel that emphasis needs to be made,” said Mr. Chilembo.

Meanwhile Mr. Chilembo revealed that Hydro-Carbon funding and investment has become very difficult citing Financing that was withdrawn for Zimbabwe’s small coal powered company as a result of G7 meeting of environmental ministers a few weeks ago.

Mr. Chilembo noted if the country does not find a way to link Hydro-Carbon to the green initiative it may be difficult to attain, emphasizing that this must be explicit in the 8th National Development plan as it must not be waited equally with the search for battery Minerals.

“It really requires a rethink and should not be waited equally with the search for battery minerals,” he noted.

According to him “there is an example of a suggestion of how we might enhance that search in the document linking our search more to gas than Oil because natural gas is cleaner and there is potential for that…”

Mr. Chilembo added that Zambia is still a high cost land locked mining destination stating that to be competitive, the country has to lower its average tax rates even further.

“We are very grateful that we received some mineral royalty deductibility change in the 2022 budget along with the increased allow-ability of interest but this still only gets us maybe to being at about for a high cost region like the Copperbelt 77% average effective average Tax rate,” he said.

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