. MASEBO

By BRIAN HATYOKA –
TOURISM and Arts Minister Sylvia Masebo has urged the Spanish and Portuguese business community to invest in Zambian tourism sector and be guaranteed of  returns on their investments.
Ms Masebo, who led a Zambian delegation to the ongoing 34th Edition of the Intentional Tourism Trade Fair (FITUR) last week in Spain, was speaking as one of the panellists during the just ended Tourism Investment and Business Forum for Africa (INVESTOUR) at a round table meeting dubbed “Investing in Africa’s hotel infrastructure”.
INVESTOUR is an initiative promoted by the UNWTO), FITUR and Casa África to promote sustainable tourism in Africa by providing a platform to facilitate dialogue on new business opportunities and cooperation between representatives of African tourism and potential Spanish and Portuguese investors.
Ms Masebo appealed to the full packed conference room comprising
ministers of tourism from different African countries, the Spanish and the Portuguese potential investors to take advantage of investing in Africa’s hotel infrastructure considering that Africa was an emerging continent growing at at the rate of  five per cent with over 1 billion people.
This is according to a press statement released by First Secretary responsible for Tourism at the Zambian Embassy in Paris, France Percy Ngwira.
Ms Masebo said Zambia had a favourable macroeconomic environment currently growing over 6.5 per cent, a stable political environment, offered very competitive fiscal and non-fiscal incentives and had a liberalised economy.
She outlined various investment opportunities that existed in Zambia’s tourism sector and urged the participants to seriously consider investing in Zambia more especially in various sites that have been identified within the different national parks across the country.
She further said that investors were guaranteed of at least 15 per cent return on investment by committing their funds in Zambia and that owing to the hosting of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation(UNWTO) General Assembly last year, was a clear testimony of Zambia’s potential to attract huge conferences which called for increased investments in the hotel infrastructure.
Ms Masebo informed the forum that the Government was investing in road and airport infrastructure to facilitate private sector development.