Zambia’s mining sector continues to be the […]

Zambia’s mining sector continues to be the key driver of the country’s economy, dominating not only exports but also the inflow of foreign exchange into the country, as reported by the Bank of Zambia in Quarter 4 of 2025.

However, despite it being the major source of export earnings and forex inflows, many experts argue that increasing value addition in the mining sector could benefit the country more as opposed to raw exports.

Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants President Yande S. Mwenye has noted that adding value to Zambia’s mineral resources that are exported out of the country could help increase revenue or money generation for the country.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Zambian Business Times— ZBT, Mwenye noted that creating initiatives that will attract investors with the sole purpose of processing copper and other minerals can help achieve value addition.

“As we know, they always say when you add value to a raw product, that’s how you make the most money, and as ZICA, we are looking forward to initiatives perhaps around inviting investors into the country with the sole purpose of them coming to process minerals because exporting minerals in their raw form is good, but we can do better by processing these minerals, be it copper, gold, or any other mineral,” said Mwenye. “Years back we had the auction of emeralds in Zambia, and that provided the much-needed resources for our economy,” Mwenye She added that adding value to minerals being produced is a welcome move, and the government needs to structure policies that will attract investors into the country to process these minerals and be given more incentives.

 “ The kind of investment we need is to attract companies to come and set up processing plants in Zambia as a starting point because yes as a nation we have grown we are over 60 years old, but they are economies that have their technological know how they have deep rooted research and development in these countries and perhaps government would consider looking at policies and incentives to invite these investors to come into the country and set up processing plants to add that much need value using state of the art technologies,” said Mwenye.

She further mentioned that the geo mapping that has been going needs transparency around reports, as the country needs to know the resources that the nation holds because Zambia is a resource-rich country

Article by Justine Phiri