By JUDITH NAMUTOWE –
THE world’s largest fertiliser producer has expressed interest in investing in the fertiliser production in Zambia.
This follows several agreements which were signed by Zambian Government and King Mohammed VI in February this year.
Commerce, Trade and Industry Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe said this during the meeting she held with an eight-man delegation led by the State Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Morocco in Lusaka yesterday.
Ms Mwanakatwe said the Moroccan-based investor was interested in fertiliser production in the country.
“So we are having a further meeting with them this afternoon (yesterday). We want to convince them that they can put their investment in fertiliser production.
“We have a lot of phosphate deposits especially in the Eastern part of Zambia where they can mine phosphate and also be able to produce whether its D-compound or urea, they are ready for that,” Ms Mwanakatwe said.
Ms Mwanakatwe shared with the delegation that Zambia has one million hectares of land that was waiting for investment to either local or foreign investors.
MWANAKATWE
“So we do hope that they will come and set up investment in this area.
They are the largest producer of fertiliser in the world, so I really don’t know why they cannot come and set up in Zambia, so that we can set up a plant so that we can produce for the region,” she said.
Zambia and Morocco signed 19 agreements to enhance corporation across various sectors, marking a new level of relations between the two countries.
The agreements were signed at State House and were overseen by President Edgar Lungu and King Mohammed VI of Morocco after the two Heads of State held private talks in Lusaka.
Eight of the agreements were government-to-government, while 11 were between the private sectors of the two countries.
The bilateral agreements were in the economic, scientific, technical, cultural cooperation, political, education, air services, investment protection, industrial cooperation, agriculture and mining sectors.
Of the eight agreements Ms Mwanakatwe said her ministry signed two namely the bilateral investments promotion and protection agreement (BIPPA) a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on industrial corporation.
She the visit of her counterpart was to first step to being to actualise the contracts.
