By PERPETUAL SICHIKWENKWE –
THE Zambian embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, says it will run business events aimed at boosting economic development between Zambia and the Scandinavian country.
Zambia’s High Commissioner to Sweden Edith Mutale said it was for this reason that the embassy had organised an interactive business event to raise awareness around the issue of efficient waste management.
Local Government Minister John Phiri will lead a delegation of senior technocrats and private business promoters to the event to be held in September this year.
Reverend Mutale said that the event would provide links between Zambian local authorities and private business, Swedish experts both from the private and public sectors on how Zambia could turn its fortunes around what was normally seen as garbage or waste into a profitable commodity.
She said that Zambia, like several developing countries, generated huge amounts of waste that was not recycled, a venture that did not only enhance cleanliness but earned huge profits.
Rev Mutale said in a statement that the event had attracted three Swedish institutions that were experts in waste management and one which was in water purification.
“The Zambian mission wants to explore as many avenues as possible to make beneficial linkages between Sweden and Zambia as part of its main objectives apart from the usual political diplomatic representation,” Rev Mutale said.
Sweden is viewed internationally as a country that has run out of garbage. While this is a positive-almost enviable-predicament for a country to be facing, Sweden now has to search for rubbish outside of its borders to generate its waste.
Zambia is faced with a challenge of how to deal with its waste management.