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Mr Guy Scott

LUSAKA. — A two-day meeting aimed at unlocking the mineral potential of Africa’s Great Rift Valley sub-region opened in the Zambian capital yesterday with vice president Guy Scott challenging countries to seriously considering investing in value addition of the minerals to increase earnings.

The second Great Rift Valley Summit has attracted 10 countries from the sub-region namely Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The meeting is being attended by mining firms among them China’s NFC Africa Plc, which runs three mining operations in Zambia and SANY, which supplies machineries to mining companies.

Speaking at the start of the meeting, the Zambian vice president said despite the region being heavily endowed in mineral resources, earnings were still insignificant because the minerals were being exported in raw form.

According to the Zambian vice president, value addition to the region’s mineral wealth was crucial in order to ensure maximum benefits and to improve living standards of local people.

He said Africa should graduate from exporting raw mineral resources by promoting industries that will ensure value addition to the resources.

The meeting has brought together officials from governments, mining owners as well as other stakeholders in order to explore opportunities existing in the industry and for governments to provide necessary information on what is on offer, according to an official from the organizers who declined to be named.

The official told Xinhua on the sidelines of the meeting that the first summit was held in Tanzania last year and added that despite the sub-region having abundant natural resources, many barriers still existed which were hindering full exploitation of the resources.

“As organisers, we thought of bringing the different players together so that they can discuss investment opportunities existing and also look at how various challenges can be tackled,” he said.

Zambia’s Minister of Mines, Energy and Water Development Christopher Yaluma told the meeting that promotion of value addition was crucial in order to enhance benefits from the industry and added that there was considerable investment opportunity in value addition to the minerals produced.

“It is estimated that only one percent of the copper produced in Zambia is utilised in the local manufacturing sector. The rest of the copper from the mining industry is exported unprocessed,” he said.

Augustine Kasanda Ngoy, general-secretary of the DRC Ministry of Mines said countries in the region needed to harmonize their mining policies in order to realize maximum benefits from the mineral wealth. — Xinhua.