• The City will serve as an access point for trade between Zambia, DRC and Angola

• Creating a cluster could become an important commercial and industrial reference point for the region

• Lobito Corridor is an enabler to the Smart (Green) City & Organic Farm Blocks

The Bridge Consortium says it is seeking to attract over US$5 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) through the Smart (Green) City it intends to construct located in Mwinilunga District, North-Western Province.

Bridge Consortium Founder, Gai’us Mwangana King says the City will serve as an access point for trade between Zambia, DR Congo and Angola, as Zambia shares its largest border with Angola and DR Congo which has an estimated country population of 33 million and 95 million people respectively.

Speaking in Lusaka during ZAMREAL, Zambia’s Property Forum when making a presentation, dubbed leveraging border cities for sustainable accelerated economic development, Mr. King said creating a well organised sustainable industrial cluster could become an important commercial and industrial reference point for the region.

“The City seeks to provide inhabitants with a full circle of the human and industrial life experience”

Mr. King highlighted that the Lobito Corridor as an important gateway for industrial and agricultural goods produced in Central and Southern Africa, is an enabler to the Smart (Green) City which benefit the country, especially the North Western part.

He notes that the corridor offers a shorter and hence faster access for exports to and imports from Europe, South & North America and supporting this corridor with critical infrastructure such as cities and farm blocks is of prime paramount economic importance.

Mr. King however notes that regardless of the Lobito port being second largest in Angola, currently there is no road linking Zambia to the Lobito corridor and there is also no road connectivity between Zambia and Angola.

He added that “the North-Western Province is estimated to futurist population of approximately 2 million people and is poised to grow over the years.

Mwinilunga being a strategic district in the country it is at the tip of two major economies, Angola and Democratic republic of Congo, with two borders on each side of the District.

Mr. King had since noted that “the Future of Africa is in our hands, we should be champions of our own fates and captains of our own endeavors and failure for us to plan cities in a sustainable way will not only disadvantage us from growing the country” but it will also hinder the continent from creating real wealth for the private sector and curtail efficient collection of taxes for governments.

He emphasized that the future of building, improving existing cities and building new ones is of paramount importance.