Zambia sees foreign direct investment doubling in 2008 to $3 billion, with dependence on China being diluted by new investments from India, Malaysia, South Africa and emerging African powerhouse Nigeria.
Commerce and trade minister Felix Mutati said on May 23 new investments would push growth in the copper-rich country to 7.5 percent in 2008 - up from a previous forecast from the finance minister of 7.0 percent - creating 100,000 new jobs. "The target of $3 billion in FDI will be achieved by the end of the year," he told Reuters by telephone from the capital Lusaka. "There is not a singular but a divergent source of funds, giving us a good investment balance... We now think economic growth this year will be around 7.5 percent."
Zambia's Treasury says the country received $1.4 billion in foreign direct investment in 2007. The main limiting factor was the country's poor road infrastructure and limited power generation capacity, he said. Mutati said the country would aim to invest to improve that, with India's ER Engineering building a $500 million coal power plant as well as evaluating coal deposits.
Other Indian firms would invest millions of dollars in manganese mining, agriculture and agro-processing, Mutati added.
Other potential or confirmed investments included South African-backed sugar production, Nigerian banking and cement production and a Malaysian factory making mobile phones for the wider southern African region, he said.
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