Maravi

Libyan investors to improve agriculture, tourism sector

Libyan investors to improve agriculture, tourism sector
By Joan Chirwa
Wednesday January 30, 2008 [03:00]

LIBYAN investors are set to pump in over US $100 million in the agriculture and tourism sectors in Zambia, making it the first significant Pan-African investment in the country. The investment, which includes the establishment of a sugar plantation in Luwena in Luapula Province, a lodge at Kasaba Bay and a five-star hotel in Lusaka, is expected to be actualised before the end of the year.

During the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry in Lusaka on Monday, Libyan Arab African Investment Company deputy managing director Ahmed Mohamed Amer said the investments were targeted at sectors that required urgent development.

“The Libyan investments aim to develop sectors that are waiting to be invested in,” Amer said. “The only investment we have put up in Zambia is the Millennium village in Lusaka, but now we have come to invest in the agriculture and tourism sectors.”

A consultant has already been engaged to carry out feasibility studies for the construction of a lodge at Kasaba Bay and a five star hotel in Lusaka.

The Libyan Arab Investment Company has given the Ministry of Tourism about US $470,000 (approximately K1.8 billion) to come up with a tourism plan before the construction of the lodge could begin.

The investment group has had discussions with Chainama Hotel in Lusaka which has finally given them 9.5 hectares of land to construct a five-star hotel, as one of the major establishments.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives has also allocated land for the sugar estate and refinery in Luwena, a development that is likely to create employment within the community once it materialises.

And commerce minister Felix Mutati said Zambia’s co-operation with Libya was slowly transforming from a political to an economic one.

“This investment represents what Africa can do to enhance itself,” Mutati said. “We are strengthening the co-operation between Libya and Zambia and it is this co-operation which is now culminating into investment flows from Libya into Zambia.”

Labels: FDI, LIBYA

posted by MrK @ 3:29 AM