State initiate quarterly meetings with mines
By NKWETO MFULATHE Government has initiated quarterly meetings with the Chamber of Mines to check the performance of the mines following the newly introduced mining taxes that have raised concern among mining firms.
Chamber of Mines, newly elected president, Nathan Chishimba said Government had shown commitment to developing the mining industry through the introduced quarterly meetings.
Mr Chishimba was speaking in an interview over the weekend.
Mr Chishimba said the meetings would help the concerned parties to map up the way forward for the sustainability of the sector.
He said the viability and development of the sector could only be achieved through the line ministry’s dialogue with the mining industry.
He said issues of tax and various others that could be resolved through discussions with the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development were important.
“Government means well for the mining sector to initiate quarterly meetings with the stakeholders in the mining sector,” he said.
He said Minister of Mines, Dr Kalombo Mwansa had initiated the quarterly meetings with the view of sustaining the sector in Zambia.
And Mr Chishimba said the establishment of an index market for the mining companies could only be achieved when a good number of companies were listed on the Lusaka Stock Exchange (LuSE).
He said there were not enough mining companies that were listed on LuSE to determine indexing of the sector.
However, he was optimistic that in future, indexing of mining or any other sector on LuSE would be achieved.
“ Lets not look at the mining companies alone as being the major players on LuSE, there are other companies in agriculture, finance and other sectors that are blue chip companies for an index market,” he said.
Mr Chishimba said listing mining companies on the LuSE was dependent on the shareholders that held shares in various companies on the international stock exchanges.
“The issues of listing on the stock market can only be handled by individual mining companies,” he said.
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