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Mining & Natural Resources
Zambia also has some valuable pure white marble
deposits in Lusaka and other provinces. Lusaka
boasts marble quartzite and light pink marble, as well
as plain and dark greens and salmon pink. There are
large granite reserves, with those at Itezhi-tezhi and
Kalomo usually speckled black or grey, with a rare
blue granite found in Solwezi. Clay deposits occur
throughout the country, with important deposits lo-
cated at Serenje, Chama, Solwezi, Kasanka, Chin-
gola, Mkushi and the Luano Valley.
The Copperbelt also is home to mining operations of
silica, while fluorite can be located in the Shangwa
Hills region. Although graphite reserves have not
been quantified, they are known to exist in a number
of areas. Tantalite also occurs in Zambia in South-
ern Province and in Petauke district.
Zambia’s only producer of limestone, and related
products, the Ndola Lime Company, in the Cop-
perbelt, supplies local manufacturing, agricultural
and construction industries. It also exports to South
Africa, the DRC, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Namibia and
Tanzania.
THE SMALL-SCALEMININING (SSM) SECTOR
The small-scale mining sector is labour intensive by
nature and as such it has great potential to generate
much employment for the people of Zambia and in-
fuse rural areas with news sources of income. Lua-
pula Province recently has generated some serious
small to medium scale mining operations of manga-
nese. Other small-scale mining operations include
mining of amethyst, emeralds, and zircon.
Despite the number of SSM operations, Zambia has
failed to be recognized as a chief producer of the
best emeralds, amethyst, red garment tourmaline
and many other gemstones because of the manual
nature of these operations and the inability to access
finance from financial institutions. Thus, the Small
Scale Mining Sector is in need of assistance regard-
ing the development of managerial skills, business
development, technical expertise, and marketing
strategies.
The UNZA School of Mines and other institutions
plan on providing short-term courses to improve in
such areas. There are also plans to introduce a
training program for instructors in various skills so
that the Small Scale Miners can help in training the
newcomers of the industry.
The Small Scale Mining companies through the Fed-
eration of Small Scale Mining Associations of Zam-
bia are able to interact with the government in order
to discuss a number of issues to improve the sector.
The vision for the future of the Small Scale Mining
Sector is to maximize the economic value of the in-
vestment in the Small Scale Mining Sector aimed at
maximizing contribution to the country’s economic
growth, whilst continuing to grow in a sustainable
way.
OTHER OPPORTUNITIES
AND DEVELOPMENTS
Abundant investment opportunities exist in Zambia,
not only in regards to further exploration of the afore-
mentioned commodities but also for others such as
tin/tantalum, iron ore and phosphates for example.
At present the Ministry of Mines and Natural Re-
sources is currently transferring from a manual to a
modern fully digital ‘flexi-cadastre’ tenement data-
base and licensing system. Once fully operational
and accessible to the public (hopefully via a new
website) this system will be of enormous benefit to
the mining and exploration sector in Zambia by facili-
tating accurate and up to date records and also the
efficient, transparent and quick processing of license
applications and renewals.
This will be fundamental in attracting further sig-
nificant foreign investment. In addition, the govern-
ment has recently announced new initiatives with
the Japanese International Co-operation Agency
(‘JICA’), the Korean Institute of Geosciences and
Mineral Resources (‘KIGAM’) as well as the Finnish
International Development Agency (‘FINIDA’). New
programmes will include new geological mapping
over the remaining 35-40% of the country which has
not been tackled so far, digitally capture and archive
historical geological and exploration data into a GIS
database and generally initiate technical training and
skills development with a view to generating future
exploration and mining projects. These programmes
ultimately can lead to substantial new discoveries.