Zambia to back cartel on copper
Zambia to back cartel on copperPRESIDENT Mwanawasa has said Zambia stands ready to support efforts aimed at reviving a grouping for copper producing countries in southern Africa. Mr Mwanawasa said this is in an effort to create a fair price for the product on the international market. He was speaking when former Namibian president Sam Nujoma paid a courtesy call on him at State House yesterday.
The President advised Mr Nujoma to use his current university geological studies to lobby leaders of copper producing countries in the region to revive the initiative of creating a cartel. “While you are studying, you should take advantage to prod those in leadership in these leading copper producing countries in the region to create a cartel because we want to create a fair price for copper on the market,” he said. He recalled that when Mr Nujoma was president of Namibia, the two countries brainstormed on the idea of forming a cartel among the countries.
And Mr Nujoma said there was need for Namibia, Zambia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as leading copper producers in the region, to form a cartel to ensure that minerals were utilised for the benefit of the people in the region. Mr Nujoma, who is a student of Economic Geology at the University of Namibia is in the country on a study tour. He, however, recognised the role that information technology played in mineral development and marketing.
He acknowleged that the four copper producing countries were currently supplying the world with the mineral which was widely used in technological advancement. Mr Mwanawasa further said that during Mr Nujoma’s rule, Zambia and Namibia initiated the Livingstone-Katimamulilo power interconnection project and conceived the idea of a joint agriculture venture. He expressed hope that the joint agriculture project in Sesheke between the two countries would be fully implemented before his second term of office expires. After the meeting, the two visited the funeral house of Mr Nujoma’s late friend Allan Phiri in Lusaka’s Olympia Park. -ZANIS
posted by MrK @ 5:44 AM
2 Comments:
glad we are purging out the undesirables, bet all ministries will follow suit.corruption has reached its peak the graph can only go the opposite direction
I'm not sure whether a cartel is the answer. Personally I think measures like that are retrogressive.
There is simply no substitute for actually owning the mines.
I don't think the state should actually run them. I think that private companies should run the mines on behalf of the state, and that all the profits should go to the state.
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