LiveBusiness & Economy
Zambian business, the macro economy, trade and investment — what is moving and why it matters.
Guinea has banned raw gold exports and now demands local refining, African Business reported. For Zambia, whose copper still leaves largely unprocessed, the move sharpens a long-running question about where the value is captured.
The Zambia Revenue Authority says a Lusaka Subordinate Court convicted Suhel Moosa, trading as Mobile Monster, for failing to record sales on Smart Invoice, its electronic invoicing system.
Zambia's Energy Regulation Board cut pump prices for a third straight month in August 2026, but transport fares and food prices remain high and non-food inflation is rising.
Zambia recorded a K4.2 billion trade surplus in June 2026, down from K7.0 billion in May, as imports rose 10.2% and exports fell 1.6%, ZamStats said.
Annual inflation stayed at 6.5% in July 2026, ZamStats said. Food inflation eased to 6.4% while non-food rose to 6.7%, holding the headline rate inside the central bank's target band.
The Bank of Zambia cut the statutory reserve ratio on kwacha deposits to 21% from 26%, freeing about K5 in every K100 of deposits for lending. The ratio on foreign-currency deposits stays at 36%.
Growth is up 7.7%, inflation is in target and the debt workout is nearly done. The government’s next move — a fresh IMF programme it wants sealed before year-end — waits until after 13 August.
Zambia has doubled its Chisamba solar plant to 200 megawatts with a second 100 MW phase commissioned on 21 July 2026 — the clearest sign yet of a drought-driven pivot from hydropower to solar.
Zambia is issuing mining rights at pace and chasing three million tonnes of copper. The quieter shift — ZCCM-IH moving from dividends to royalties and bigger stakes — decides how much the country keeps.
As TAZARA turns 50, landlocked Zambia is weighing two rival routes for its copper: east to the Indian Ocean via a rebuilt TAZARA, or west to the Atlantic via the Lobito Corridor.
An analysis of Zambia's 13 August election as a referendum on President Hakainde Hichilema's economic record, drawing on Reuters wire reporting, the International Monetary Fund, S&P Global Ratings and official debt-restructuring figures.
The Bank of Zambia has told the Lusaka High Court that its liquidation of Investrust Bank was lawful and necessary, after 155 former employees sued over unpaid redundancy benefits. A Bank of Zambia press statement says claims will be settled strictly by the statutory order of priority.
ZamStats told a panel at the 60th Zambia International Trade Fair that GDP will be rebased from 2010 to 2023, capturing sectors like ICT, tourism and renewables that barely existed in the old baseline.
Zambia has reaffirmed its commitment to deeper economic cooperation with Burundi, with government citing scope to expand trade, investment, agriculture, mining, energy and tourism between the two countries.
Vice-President Mutale Nalumango opened the 60th Zambia International Trade Fair in Ndola on President Hakainde Hichilema's behalf, delivering his appeal for Zambian businesses to back local content.
President Hakainde Hichilema has pledged that a re-elected government will supply mining equipment to registered small-scale gold-mining cooperatives in Chitambo district, Central Province, part of a wider campaign push to formalise artisanal mining ahead of the 13 August election.
Government has released K1.4 billion for the Social Cash Transfer programme’s May–June 2026 payment cycle, Permanent Secretary Angela Kawandami says, describing it as the latest in a series of disbursements this year.
The Ministry of Agriculture is preparing to roll out the Farmer Input Support Programme's E-Voucher system across all 116 districts for the 2026/2027 season, requiring agro-dealers to submit full documentation for vetting ahead of provincial training in July.
President Hakainde Hichilema urged Zambezi District residents to vote for the UPND in the 13 August election, saying the party's economic record — debt restructuring, a return to growth and a steadier kwacha — is reason to sustain it in government.
The Japan-Zambia Investment Agreement will enter into force on 30 July 2026, extending treaty-level protection to Japanese investors in Zambia's copper and cobalt sectors and adding a de-risking layer as Lusaka races to triple copper output by 2031.
Zambia has scored 81 out of 100 and earned a 'very good' rating in its third validation under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the global standard for openness in mining revenues.
ATIDI marks 25 years and convenes its 2026 Annual General Meeting in Nairobi from 30 June to 3 July, drawing African leaders, investors and development financiers — a body whose risk cover touches Zambia's trade and energy plans.
A new Transition Minerals Tracker from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre finds human-rights abuses linked to mining copper, cobalt and other transition minerals are rising sharply across Africa — a governance test for Zambia’s copper-led, responsible-supplier strategy.
Vice-President Mutale Nalumango said the government has stabilised Zambia’s economy and is now shifting focus to growth and jobs, a message delivered seven weeks before the 13 August general election and set against first-quarter GDP growth of 7.7 percent, easing debt and cooling inflation.
Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane and opposition candidate Mundubile have clashed over the value of Zambia's forex reserves, with the economy now the campaign's battleground.
The Bank of Zambia has retired the cheque, with 26 June 2026 the final day for interbank clearing as the regulator pushes households and firms onto electronic payments.
Zambia's gross domestic product grew 7.7% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, the Zambia Statistics Agency said, up from 4.5% a year earlier.
Zambia's annual inflation slowed to 6.5% in June 2026 from 6.6% in May, the lowest since February 2018, the Zambia Statistics Agency said.
Dubai-based Spiro has closed a $270m equity round, capped by a $55m investment from Chinese fund NewTrails Capital. The electric-motorcycle and battery-swap operator is heading for DR Congo and Malawi, bringing the wave to Zambia's doorstep and to its copper and cobalt.
Public debt has fallen to 94% of GDP from a 2021 peak near 129%, reserves have rebuilt to US$5.5bn and bond yields have eased, according to Ministry of Finance data. The recovery is real but unfinished.
The Workers’ Compensation Fund Control Board has rebranded, with Vice-President Mutale Nalumango touting a fund that grew from K2.5 billion to K6.6 billion in three years and now eyes K10 billion on the back of roads, fertiliser and energy bets.
Zambia’s pension fund has defended its US$300 million stake in the Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriageway as a commercial call backed by due diligence, not a government directive, as the US$650 million PPP road to the Copperbelt pushes past a third complete.
KoBold Metals broke ground on shaft construction at the Mingomba copper project in Chililabombwe on 29 April 2026, an investment exceeding US$2 billion billed as Zambia’s largest-ever private investment.
Zambia has launched a debt-for-energy conversion, using a US$600 million African Development Bank loan to buy back its US$1.36 billion 2053 Eurobond and channelling up to US$275 million into a national grid resilience programme.
The Bank of Zambia cut its policy rate by 25 basis points to 13.25% on 13 May 2026, its third consecutive cut, citing a favourable maize harvest and a strong kwacha, with inflation inside the 6–8% target band.
Zambia has signed about $1.8 billion in power-related financing since April — a $1.5 billion CMEC deal for 900 megawatts and a €290 million Globeleq solar project — as it borrows again to fix the power shortage behind its load-shedding.
A copper rally has rebuilt Zambia’s reserves, steadied the kwacha and kept the government’s bond market trading — clear signs the country is pulling clear of the debt crisis, even as commercial-creditor talks and copper-price risk remain.
The Zambia Revenue Authority and the High Commission in London held their first tax webinar for Zambians in the UK — covering registration, tax clearance and investment incentives, with a 30 June revenue-strategy deadline flagged.
Zambia’s trade surplus widened to K3.5 billion in April 2026, up from K0.9 billion in March, the Zambia Statistics Agency said — but a 9.3 percent fall in imports, not an export boom, did most of the work.
The Bank of Zambia’s 2025 annual report shows external debt service fell $90.9m to $575.1m, driven by lower payments on restructured Eurobonds — but the debt stock kept rising.
Airtel Networks Zambia became the fourth company to cross a $1 billion market value on the Lusaka Securities Exchange, a milestone tied to economic reform and $107m of network investment.
A 15-year Grid Resilience Programme worth up to $275 million will channel sovereign debt savings into Zambia’s electricity distribution network, targeting the outages that have plagued homes and businesses.
A framework to end the war with Iran has sent oil prices tumbling from wartime highs — good news for a country that imports every litre of fuel, but relief that will arrive with a lag.
The Lobito Atlantic Railway has resumed copper shipments after flood repairs — and a planned 800km extension to Chingola could make it Zambia’s fastest route to the Atlantic.
African startups raised more in early 2026 than a year earlier, but the money is flowing to fewer, larger deals — and increasingly as debt rather than equity. What the rebound means for smaller markets like Zambia.
A proposed 12.5-percentage-point US tariff would hit Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa over forced-labour rules — a list that leaves Zambia out but redraws the trade map across the continent.
Zambia’s local-currency debt has handed investors the best returns of any government bond market this year, lifted by a firming kwacha — lowering the state’s borrowing costs but leaning on the currency holding its gains.
The National Pension Scheme Authority says its US$300 million stake in the Lusaka-Ndola dual carriageway was a commercial decision protected by escrow and toll revenues — not a project forced on it by the government. The money comes from Zambian workers’ pensions.
SpaceX shares jumped about 18% on their Nasdaq debut, valuing the rocket and satellite company near $2 trillion and making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. Its Starlink unit, which sells internet in Zambia, now has fresh capital to expand.
The Bank of Zambia is pushing lenders to tighten credit checks after its April 2026 Financial Stability Report found loan delinquency among civil servants at 16.2%, well above the 10% prudential threshold, blaming over-indebtedness and borrowers stacking loans across institutions.
Ghana, Rwanda and Zambia are piloting instant cross-border payments over PAPSS that settle directly in local currencies — cedi, franc and kwacha — without routing through the US dollar, in a bid to cut the cost of intra-African trade.
President Hakainde Hichilema has reaffirmed a commitment to local-content regulations in mining, framing them as the route to Zambians benefiting directly from the country's copper and other resources. State House tied the rules to responsible resource use and economic growth.
The Zambian kwacha is trading in the K17 bracket against the US dollar for the first time since 2023, driven by copper earnings, a bumper harvest, and debt reform.
A handful of outsourcing firms — led by Blackstone-owned VFS Global — now run the front desk of global migration. Their profits have quadrupled on fees and add-ons that African travellers, Zambians among them, pay whether or not they are ever let in, while the EU raised visa fees 12.5% despite high African rejection rates.
The African fintechs that last design for the basic phone, the thin data bundle and the cash that people already use — not a premium market that has not arrived. With WhatsApp near-universal and lenders like Optasia clearing $30m a day in tiny loans, the lesson lands on Zambia’s USSD-based mobile-money market more usefully than any Silicon Valley template.
The EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism prices the carbon embedded in selected imports. Zambia's hydro-heavy grid is a low-carbon advantage over coal-reliant rivals — but drought-driven load-shedding and diesel back-up erode it, and the live question for copper is scope expansion rather than present coverage.
The United States will cut by more than half its embassies in Africa that process visas, the Associated Press reported on 1 June 2026. Fewer processing points mean longer journeys and waits for students, businesses, families and the diaspora — Zambians among them.
Velos Mining Limited is weighing a copper processing plant in the Bunda Bunda chiefdom of Rufunsa District. The Bunda Bunda Royal Establishment has welcomed the prospect, and the plan tests Zambia’s push to add value to copper closer to source. The investment remains at a consideration stage.
Gold has hit records above $5,500 an ounce as war and fiscal risk drive safe-haven demand. For Zambia, building gold reserves and a young gold-mining sector, it is an opening as much as a warning.
The $600m African Development Bank loan financing Zambia's bond buyback is tied to a 15-year National Grid Resilience Program, coordinated by GreenCo and aimed at ending load-shedding.
The Iran war has pushed Brent crude up more than 55% and choked the Strait of Hormuz. For fuel-importing Zambia, the global oil shock tests the kwacha, inflation and a fragile recovery.
Zambia's Energy Regulation Board cut diesel, kerosene and jet A-1 prices for June 2026 while holding petrol at K27.15 a litre, citing cheaper imports and a stronger kwacha.
China's zero-tariff policy now covers every African country with diplomatic ties to Beijing, including Zambia. For Lusaka the prize lies not in copper, which already entered duty-free, but in gemstones, agriculture and processed goods.
President Hakainde Hichilema has put private-sector revenue at the centre of Zambia's growth pitch, pointing to Barrick's Lumwana copper mine and its contribution to the national purse as the economy emerges from debt restructuring.
Brent crude is back above $99 a barrel as the Strait of Hormuz disruption deepens — the IEA calls it the biggest supply shock in oil history. Zambia's pump-price feedthrough lands in 2-6 weeks via the ERB cost-plus formula.
LME copper spot reached $13,565.69 a tonne on 26 May and held above $13,500 through the week. US tariff-driven inventory pull and Middle East supply concerns continue to bid the metal, even as Q1 2026 Zambian output came in 4.27% below year-ago levels.
Zambia produced 208,993 tonnes of copper in Q1 2026, down 4.27% on Q1 2025. Large-scale mines posted modest gains; small-scale operations dragged the headline. The 3-million-tonne 2031 target now requires a sustained 23% annual growth rate from the 2025 base.
President Hakainde Hichilema received Letters of Credence from envoys representing Tanzania, Indonesia, Greece, Gabon, Norway and Mexico on Tuesday, framing Zambia as a destination for equal-terms trade and investment after the close of its debt restructuring.
Moody's has raised its outlook on South Africa's sovereign rating to positive while keeping the rating in sub-investment grade — a move that loosens regional bond spreads and may help Zambia's ongoing restructuring story at the margin.
The US Federal Reserve held its policy rate at 3.5–3.75% for a third straight meeting in April 2026 on an 8-4 vote, and markets now see a real chance the next move is a hike rather than a cut as an energy shock revives inflation. Gold has surged past $4,700, with banks forecasting $5,000 or more. For frontier borrowers such as Zambia, higher-for-longer US rates raise the cost of external debt — but a record copper price and a strong kwacha are cushioning the squeeze.
The Bank of Zambia's Currency Directives, 2025 require that all domestic transactions in Zambia are settled in kwacha rather than US dollars, even where a contract is priced in a foreign currency. Issued under the Bank of Zambia Act, 2022 and effective from 26 December 2025, the rule converts foreign-currency contracts at the market rate, exempts banking, securities, insurance and specified mining flows, and carries penalties of up to 2,500 penalty units or two years' imprisonment. This explainer sets out how the kwacha-only rule works and who it affects.
Zambian consumer inflation fell to 7.5% year-on-year in February 2026, its lowest since June 2018 and the first reading inside the Bank of Zambia's 6-8% target band since April 2019. A kwacha that has strengthened around 30% against the dollar and a maize harvest that more than doubled to 3.7 million tonnes pulled food and import prices down. Lower inflation eases the cost of living and gives the central bank room on its 14% policy rate, though an oil-price shock remains the main risk to the outlook.
Zambia's copper output is forecast to pass one million tonnes in 2026, with Fitch Solutions projecting a 10% rise as expansion projects at Barrick's Lumwana, Konkola Copper Mines, Mopani and Lubambe add around 400,000 tonnes a year at full ramp-up. The milestone underpins GDP growth near 6.4%, lifts mineral royalties and supports the kwacha, and marks a step toward the government's stated target of three million tonnes by 2031. Power supply remains the central risk to the forecast.
The United States has charged seven Chinese executives and four firms with running an illegal shipping-container cartel. The case is about price-fixing in the boxes that move global trade. For landlocked Zambia, freight is a tax on everything imported — fuel, machinery, medicines, consumer goods — and anything that distorts the cost of containers and shipping reaches the Zambian shelf price. Here is why a US antitrust case matters in Lusaka.
Zambia's current IMF programme is winding toward its end, and Secretary to the Treasury Felix Nkulukusa says the government is confident of clinching a successor arrangement after the 13 August general election. The framing is deliberate: a new programme is being lined up for after the vote, not before it. For a country still consolidating a post-default fiscal path, the continuity of an IMF anchor is the variable markets and lenders are watching most closely.
The mobile-money agent — the person at the kiosk who turns cash into digital value and back — is the most important node in Zambia's financial system. A new agent training manual from the Payments Association of Zambia marks a shift: the agent network is being treated as a profession with standards, not an informal patchwork. The move matters because agents are where financial inclusion, fraud risk and consumer trust all meet.
The United Nations has cut its 2026 global growth forecast, citing the Middle East crisis and elevated oil prices as the main drags. For Zambia, a downgraded world outlook is not an abstraction. It transmits directly through three channels: copper demand and price, the kwacha exchange rate, and the fuel-import bill that feeds domestic inflation. The size of each channel decides how much a weaker world costs Lusaka.
South Africa has overtaken Spain to become the world's leading citrus exporter, a milestone built on two decades of variety investment, cold-chain logistics and market-access diplomacy. For Zambia — where agriculture is the second-largest employer but exports stay narrow — the South African route is the most relevant playbook on the continent. The lesson is not the fruit. It is the system behind it.
From 24 June 2026, Zambian commercial banks stop processing cheques. The Bank of Zambia phase-out is final, the rationale is sound — cheques are the slowest, most fraud-prone payment rail in the system — and the practical question for businesses is what to use instead. The answer is a three-rail mix: real-time gross settlement (RTGS) for large payments, the Zambia Electronic Funds Transfer (ZEFT) system for routine batched flows, and mobile money for everything small.
Agentic AI — software that can plan and take multi-step actions on a shopper's behalf — is the next platform shift in retail, according to a new McKinsey and ICSC report carried by African Business. The headline number is $5 trillion in unlocked global retail revenue by 2030. Zambian retailers, mostly mid-sized and offline-dominant, are not the target audience for that scenario. They are the next-door audience: the businesses agentic AI will reach through Africa's mobile-money rails before the average shop owner has read a slide deck.
Afreximbank's 33rd Annual Meetings open in Alamein from 21 to 24 June 2026 under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi's patronage, with more than 3,000 delegates expected. For Zambia — a long-standing member state and one of the bank's busiest trade-finance counterparties — the meetings matter for AfCFTA payments, the Lobito Corridor pipeline and the next phase of intra-African settlement.
LUSAKA — The Bank of Zambia is closing the cheque system. Circular 08/2024 sets 24 June 2026 as the last day customers can deposit a cheque at any commercial bank.
LUSAKA — Brent crude is back above $110 a barrel after Donald Trump's latest warning to Iran and that is the variable Zambian fuel prices and the kwacha will struggle to absorb.
LUSAKA — The latest round of US–South Africa critical-minerals talks is a fresh entry on a board where Zambia is already a named player through the trilateral MoU and the Lobito Corridor.
Bank of Zambia Governor Denny Kalyalya says the central bank does not forecast the exchange rate and that whether the kwacha keeps appreciating depends on underlying export earnings, fiscal discipline and investor sentiment.
Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane says the UPND government has signed 19 Public-Private Partnership projects worth $9.1 billion since 2022, with $1.7 billion already returned to the Treasury and a 51-project pipeline worth another $5.1 billion.
Zambia has signed a bilateral agreement with Israel to restructure US$460 million in debt owed to the Israeli state-backed insurer ASHRA. Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane called the deal proof of fiscal discipline; the repayment window runs to 2043.
Outgoing Energy Minister Makozo Chikote, departing cabinet to seek a fresh parliamentary mandate, says Zambia is "destined to become a major energy hub in the region" and that the team he leaves behind has plans for Middle East-driven petroleum disruption.
Economist Trevor Hambayi argues Zambia must own at least 60% of its mines and bypass European intermediaries to benefit from China's new zero-tariff policy. Fellow economist Bright Chizonde calls for an outright suspension of raw-material exports.
This is Kwacha News' coverage of the Zambian economy and the businesses that move within it — growth and inflation, the national budget, debt and the fiscal picture, trade and investment, and the policy decisions of the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Zambia. The brief is plain reporting first: what changed, what the numbers say, and what it means for companies, workers and households. Mining, energy and agriculture recur here because they remain the spine of the Zambian economy, and the section reads them alongside the broader Southern African and global context that shapes commodity demand and capital flows.
Markets
The kwacha, the Lusaka Securities Exchange, interest rates, banking and commodity prices.
Politics
Zambian government, policy and governance — the decisions that set the rules for everything else.
Africa/World
Southern Africa, the continent and the wider world — regional trade, the AfCFTA, and the global context behind the domestic story.