ZAMBIA: Zambia announces hold on uranium mining as mining stakeholders in Southern Africa meet with international investors

Record ID: 453343

  • Title: ZAMBIA: Zambia announces hold on uranium mining as mining stakeholders in Southern Africa meet with international investors
  • Date: 29th November 2006
  • Summary: WIDE OF CONFERENCE HALL, DELEGATES ZAMBIA'S MINISTER OF MINES AND MINERALS DEVELOPMENT KALOMBO MWANSA (LEFT) WITH HIS DEPUTY MAXWELL MWALE AND FRANCESCA DI MAURO, HEAD COUNSELLOR, EUROPEAN UNION IN ZAMBIA VARIOUS OF DELEGATES LISTENING
  • Embargoed: 14th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Zambia
  • Country: Zambia
  • Topics: Industry
  • Reuters ID: LVA2OURREEALOM270JJ7PRF6Q5EZ
  • Story Text: Zambia will not issue licences for mining uranium until it gets guidelines from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) despite the discovery of huge uranium deposits, the mining minister said on Wednesday (November 29).
    "There are two companies doing explorations work but no one is mining uranium yet, no one has been given the licence to mine it, because we are looking at the policy issues of storage, marketing and transportation so what is going on it just exploration works because no one has a licence to mine," Mines and Minerals Development Minister Kalombo Mwansa told journalists.
    Officials and exploration firms have reported the discovery of major uranium deposits in in the mineral-rich southern African country in recent months.
    Mwansa said firms had been given licences to explore uranium and that mining licences would only be awarded once guidelines were provided from the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
    "That is new discovery so safety and environmental measure will have to be introduced to make sure it applies the requirements of the International Atomic Energy," added Francesca Di Mauro, Counsellor for the European Union in Zambia .
    Mwansa said significant uranium deposits have been found around Lake Kariba in the southern province and at the Lumwana copper mine in northwestern province.
    The minister was speaking at a mining conference in Lusaka where he announced that the state Geological Survey Department had preliminary data showing more uranium deposits in eastern Zambia and that exploration would be undertaken to determine the amount of the minerals.
    The conference is the product of a partnership programme between the European Union and Southern African Development Community (SADC). The aim is to promote interaction between SADC mining stakeholders and investors from within Africa, Europe, Canada, and Australia.
    The minister also said Zambian authorities had extended incentives awarded to copper and cobalt mines to other mining firms to explore and mine different base metals.
    Mwansa said firms mining base metals in Zambia would no longer be required to pay duty on imported mining equipment which is normally charged at 25 percent, and that they would not be compelled to pay 17.5 percent value added tax for a period of five years for pre-production expenditure.
    The firms also will be exempted from paying tax on dividends to shareholders and tax on interest payments to financial lending institutions which provide financing to the mining firms.
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