Envoy calls for foreign, local investor partnerships

Envoy calls for foreign, local investor partnerships
By Chibaula Silwamba
Monday March 17, 2008 [03:00]

SOUTH African High Commissioner to Zambia Moses Chikane has said partnership between foreign and local investors is the best way to ensure that the local people benefit from foreign investments and get rid of suspicion about foreign investors.

In an interview in Lusaka, High Commissioner Chikane said the good thing about the South African law was that it provided for partnerships between foreign and local investors as a means through which ordinary South Africans could benefit from investments.

“We have realised that if you do not make partnership, often, even good agreements with all good intentions turn into a situation where investors get all the benefits and never give to the local people,” High Commissioner Chikane said. “Ours is that we want a young person like you the reporter and many others to form partnerships to contribute to our economic development because our future depends on all of us.

If you relate well you will have no reason to take arms against each other, but if you don’t do business together you are likely to be suspicious of each other because you have got no close contacts among yourselves. We want to establish that and business is one of those.”

He said there were many South African companies that would want to invest in the mining and other sectors in Zambia through partnerships with local entrepreneurs.

“But this is like a man-woman love story; someone must make a first move and a first move is that the people here must consult us at the High Commission and tell us that this is the area of interest that we want to find partners and then we should facilitate that,” High Commissioner Chikane said.

“As you know that the majority of South Africans regard Zambia as their second home; we were all brought up and cuddled in Zambia. We think that now the second step of our development must be economic partnership between South African and Zambian people.”

He said he looked forward to the removal of unnecessary hurdles leading to more trade ties.

“South Africa is known worldwide for its mining abilities and Zambia’s copper has been gaining momentum in the international market, we think that there is an area of cooperation there, not only in terms of mining but also in terms of processing and beneficiation of the product so that it can be a win-win situation for everybody,” said High Commissioner Chikane.