Zambian business, the macro economy, trade and investment — what is moving and why it matters.
40 posts
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.
Copper hit a record above $13,000 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange in 2026, with a record $6.69 a pound on the US Comex on 13 May, as buyers rushed to import metal ahead of further US Section 232 tariffs. For Zambia, where copper is the dominant export, the rally lifts mineral royalties, strengthens the kwacha and eases debt servicing — though most Zambian exports are exempt from the duty driving the price. A US Commerce Department review on refined-copper tariffs is due by 30 June 2026.
Zambia's five-day presidential nomination window closes on 22 May 2026 at the Mulungushi International Conference Centre, with President Hakainde Hichilema filing for the UPND alongside opposition leaders Harry Kalaba, Fred M'membe, Brian Mundubile and Makebi Zulu. The Electoral Commission of Zambia validates each nomination against Article 100 of the Constitution before publishing the final candidate list. The next milestone is the opening of the campaign period ahead of the 13 August general election.
Once the Electoral Commission declares a presidential winner, the result is not automatically final. Under Article 101 of the Constitution, it can be challenged — but only by petition to the Constitutional Court, filed within seven days of the declaration, and the court must hear and decide it within fourteen. The compressed timeline has been the most contested feature of Zambian election law since 2016. Here is how the petition route works and why the clock matters so much.
The campaign for 13 August is governed by more than goodwill. Zambia's Electoral Code of Conduct is a binding legal instrument under the Electoral Process Act that sets the rules of the contest — barring violence and intimidation, hate speech, vote-buying and the abuse of state resources, while guaranteeing equal access to public media. The Electoral Commission of Zambia enforces it through conflict-management committees. Here is what the Code covers and what happens when it is broken.
Zambia does not elect a president on a simple plurality. Under the Constitution, a candidate must win more than 50% of all valid votes cast — the 50%-plus-one rule. If no candidate clears that bar on 13 August, the top two go to a run-off within 37 days. The rule, introduced in the 2016 constitutional amendments, reshaped Zambian presidential politics. Here is how the threshold, the run-off and the timelines actually work.
To stand for president in Zambia, a candidate cannot rely on a single regional base. The Constitution requires the nomination to be supported by registered voters from each of the country's ten provinces — a deliberate test of national reach. The Electoral Commission of Zambia ran provincial pre-processing of presidential supporters from 11 to 15 May 2026 to verify those backers before nominations. Here is how the rule works and why it exists.
The Electoral Commission of Zambia certified the Register of Voters on 4 May 2026 — the formal legal step that fixes the list of who is eligible to vote in the 13 August general election. Certification closes the register to further changes and becomes the single source of truth used at every polling station. It is one of the quieter milestones in the electoral calendar, and one of the most consequential: no name on the certified roll, no vote.
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 Electoral Commission of Zambia has extended the nomination period for National Assembly, mayoral and council-chairperson candidates ahead of the 13 August general election. The presidential window closed on schedule; this extension covers the down-ballot races. The move buys parties more time to finalise adoptions, but it also tightens the calendar that follows — objections, the courts and the gazette all have to happen before campaigning proper begins.
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.
Two forces dominate global markets: a bond reckoning, as investors demand higher yields to hold government debt, and an AI investment mania driving a capital-spending boom. They pull in opposite directions. The resolution sets the global cost of capital — and for a frontier borrower like Zambia, the global cost of capital is the gravity that sets domestic borrowing rates. Here is the tension, decoded, and why it reaches Lusaka.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Zambia now publishes daily GRZ bond secondary-market trade summary reports. They are dry documents. They are also one of the clearest windows into the cost of money in Zambia: where government bond yields sit, how much trading is happening, and what investors think of the fiscal path. Here is how to read the secondary market, and why its liquidity matters far beyond the trading desk.
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.
The Twelfth National Assembly is in its closing sittings before Zambia's 13 August general election dissolves it. A short list of bills is now in active progress through committee and second reading — the Public Gatherings Bill, the supplementary budget, electoral reform amendments and statutory instruments tied to the next fiscal year. What passes before August matters; what stalls waits for the Thirteenth Assembly that the election produces.
The Electoral Commission of Zambia opened the presidential nomination window for the 13 August 2026 general election on 18 May. The process runs five working days. The legal framework sits in the Constitution and the Electoral Process Act, the document checklist is specific and unforgiving, and what happens after a candidate is filed is a defined sequence of objection, adjudication and final acceptance.
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.
Ethiopia spent two decades as Africa's most state-owned major economy. The government is now unwinding the telecoms monopoly, opening the banking sector to foreign players and standing up a proper capital market for the first time. African Business calls it a 'hidden tech awakening'. For Zambia and the Lusaka Securities Exchange, the lesson is in the sequencing — what Ethiopia is doing now is what Zambian markets pulled off a generation earlier, and the reverse-engineering opportunities are real.
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.
LUSAKA — The Electoral Commission of Zambia opens a five-day presidential nomination window today, the formal start of the campaign period for general elections set for 13 August.
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.
A Lusaka High Court witness has told the M'membe firearm trial that a search of the Socialist Party president's vehicle, after a 2023 by-election fracas in Serenje, uncovered a CZ97B pistol, 35 rounds of ammunition, a metal axe, a catapult and pepper spray.
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.
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.
Secretary to the Treasury Felix Nkulukusa says the K26.3 billion supplementary budget came early because Cabinet will dissolve in June, MPs will be sworn in in August, and waiting until September would leave wages, allowances and farmer payments unfunded.
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.
Kansanshi Mining PLC says it spent about US$21 million on local procurement in the first quarter of 2026, drawing supply from 553 local companies and renewing contracts with named suppliers including Cable Network Solutions and Blue Lithium Communications.
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.
Zambia's National Assembly has passed the Public Gatherings Bill, with the threshold for required police notification amended at Committee Stage from three to seven persons. Critics call it the death of democracy; the government says it preserves order.
Zambia is accusing the United States of linking a $2 billion health assistance deal to access to its critical minerals, in a sharpening dispute that opens a window on Donald Trump's transactional approach to African aid.
Mainga Kabika, the civil-service head of the gender division in Zambia's presidency, says aspiring female candidates have reported being asked for sexual favours in exchange for selection ahead of August's general election.
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.