By BUUMBA CHIMBULU
FAIR taxation policies and realistic licensing conditions that ensure stability coupled with a proper functioning business environment will attract investment in a country.
Any business will be attracted by a good and proper functioning business environment, which includes fair taxation policies and realistic licensing conditions that ensure stability so that businesses are able to predict as their investments go forward.
This is according to the United Kingdom government’s Trade Envoy to Zambia and Angola, Laurence Robertson.
Mr Robertson therefore acknowledged the improved business environment and congratulated the Zambian government for its decisive moves to encourage a new era of mining investment for the benefit of all Zambians.
He said this recently when he toured the Kansanshi Foundation community development initiatives.
“The new Government seems totally convinced of the need to create an attractive environment for those businesses which are already here, and which will continue to invest and make new investments; as indeed they will need to do. But also, they are equally convinced of the need to attract new businesses to Zambia,” Mr Robertson said.
In response, General Manager, Anthony Mukutuma, thanked the United Kingdom government for its continued support and reiterated FQM’s long-term commitment to Zambia, buoyed by the new Government’s pro-mining stance, which paved the way for planned expansion plans at the mine.
Mr Mukutuma said FQM had been talking about an expansion at its Kansanshi mine since 2012, and that the company had been in close talks with government about the changes to the mining tax regime which would be required to unlock the huge investment.
“A range of measures are required, but principally there is a need to make mineral royalties deductible against corporate tax; and also to reform the mineral royalty the sliding scale.
“Both in the way it is applied and the actual royalties themselves, the international norm for royalties on copper mining being between three and six percent. These changes would make the tax regime competitive, but then they will also need to be locked-in and provide investors with some assurance of stability,” Mr Mukutuma said.
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