‘MINING COMPANIES NOW PROCESSING BASE METALS LOCALLY’
GO R M introduced e ort duty to discourage e orts o raw materials and now mining com anies have set u rocessing lants, Minister o Mines and Mineral evelo ment Richard Musukwa has said
r usukwa said this development had come following overnment s decision to introduce export duty on base metals.
e was responding to Serenje Central Member of Parliament a well abamba who wanted to know whether overnment has any plans to start processing base metals such as manganese, locally, before exporting them.
“ he house may wish to know that overnment already had plans to ensure that base metals are processed in the country before exporting them.
“ his is why as overnment we introduced export duty in order to discourage mining companies operating in the country from exporting raw materials said r usukwa.
He said the development was remarkable because mining companies were now processing the metals locally.
nd r abamba wanted to know whether if so when the plans will be implemented and what the benefits of processing the metals locally would be especially to the youths.
But r usukwa said that the plans were already put in place and various mining companies exploiting the base metals were setting up the processing plants.
He said Government was concerned with the continued trend of exporting minerals in raw form as the country was being denied the much needed revenue.
r usukwa said the development which had been necessitated by the introduction of export duty would help the country to realise revenue.
“ s Ispeak I may wish to inform the house that companies exploiting the base metals such as manganese in Central and Luapula Provinces have already built some processing plants. This is good because they are now processing the metal in the country and many jobs have been created,” Mr usukwa said. e said that the overnment had always advocated value addition to all the minerals before exported.