Come and Grow Zambia: Hichilema encourages UAE and Gulf companies to Invest in Key Regions

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has asked UAE and Gulf investors to participate in his government’s five-year economic plan, highlighting the country’s desire to attract investment in mining, energy, agriculture, manufacturing, and infrastructure.

The invitation comes after Hichilema’s recent two-day visit to the UAE at the invitation of President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Hichilema said Now that we have successfully concluded a two-day visit to the UAE, we cordially extend an invitation to the UAE private business sector.

Zambia has begun a five-year initiative to transform its economy. We call it the Grow Zambia Agenda, he said, adding, We’d like the UAE and the rest of the Gulf to be involved from the start, and by that we mean partners with money at stake.

The Zambian President went on to say, The UAE provides a visionary and forward-thinking government and business climate that has spent the better part of a decade creating the industries it expects to rely on after oil becomes less important than it is today.

Renewable energy, EVs manufacturing, and food security. Almost all of them are dependent on resources unavailable in the UAE but available in Zambia. The obvious choice is copper. You can’t make a turbine, a battery, a data center, or a desalination plant without it, and the world will require far more of it than it presently produces. Beyond copper, Zambia has natural resources such as gold, cobalt, and manganese, as well as territory that has never been farmed and a population in which half the people are under the age of 18. Hichilema stated that Emirati companies are already looking into mining, energy, farming, and logistics.

What we would like to do now is put a trade agreement underneath all of that, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that our two governments have been negotiating, he added explaining It would give Emirati businesses a base from which to sell to more than half a billion people across the trade blocs Zambia belongs to as well as give Zambian producers a proper route into the Gulf for finished goods.

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