Maravi

Lusaka multi-facility economic zone gets $5m infrastructure

Lusaka multi-facility economic zone gets $5m infrastructure
By Henry Sinyangwe
Fri 14 Sep. 2012, 10:20 CAT

INFRASTRUCTURE worth over US$5 million has so far been put up in the first stage of the Lusaka East Multi-Facility Economic Zone. And Zambia-China Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone general manager Zan Baosen has called on local investors to take advantage of the facility and invest in the area.

Zan said the US$5 million had been used to construct a road and an initial structure at the site. He also said about eight foreign investors had expressed interest to invest in the area.

"We treat all the investors the same regardless of where they are coming from. And the minimum amount to invest in this place is US $500,000 because we need to enhance the industrial image, so one needs to have enough initial capital to maintain the place," said Zan.

Meanwhile, commerce permanent secretary Stephen Mwansa says the government was putting up roads infrastructure in rural areas to enable easy accessibility to all parts of the country by investors.

"The idea is to ensure that every part of Zambia is accessible. At least the trunk roads, once they are done, they will make it easy to be able to deal with secondary roads and feeder roads to allow access to every part of Zambia and bring development into the hinterland of Zambia," Mwansa said.

He said most of the money from the US$500 million Euro-bond which has since received a B+ rating from global rating agency Fitch, and soon to be issued, would go towards road infrastructure.

"Government is putting in as much resources as possible and recently you heard that government is floating the Euro-bond to the value of $500 million and most of that will go towards infrastructure development, and especially road infrastructure. That is the broad-based vision which is to make Zambia a good place to do business and live and we will be able to attract more investment into the rural areas by making sure that these places are passable, and they have the basic infrastructure to make somebody live a normal life," said Mwansa.

Labels: BONDS, INFRASTRUCTURE, LUSAKA, MFEZ, ROADS

posted by MrK @ 2:02 PM