By STEVEN ZANDE –
TOGOLESE President Faure Gnassingbe has said the $300 million Kafue Steel plant demonstrates President Edgar Lungu’s practical drive to industrialise Zambia and foster job creation for the people.
Mr Gnassinbge said this in Kafue District yesterday when he undertook a site tour of the multi-million Kafue Steel plant.
“There is an African Proverb which says, ‘it is better to see once than to hear a thousand times’. What we have discovered here today has helped us realise that it will not be easy to develop Africa, neither is it impossible for the continent to grow,” Mr Gnassingbe said.
He said the steel plant demonstrated Mr Lungu’s vision to industrialise Zambia and help grow the economy and create jobs for the people.

• President Edgar Lungu (right) with his Togolese counterpart Faure Gnassingbé at Kenneth Kaunda Internatiponal Airport in Lusaka before the latter’s departure yesterday. Picture by Eddie Mwanaleza/STATE HOUSE

Mr Gnassingbe said in the face of high unemployment levels on the continent, states could not depend only on agriculture to create jobs and grow respective Gross Domestic Product (GDPs) but should seek other avenues such as channelling investment to the steel industry.
He said the steel industry had potential to enhance economic growth and deepen job creation, adding that Togo was keen to learn best practices from Zambia due to the huge iron ore reserves present in
West Africa.
Mr Gnassingbe said the Kafue Steel plant was a huge investment, which demonstrated that developing Africa to the level of China and some European countries would require effort and sacrifice.
He said African countries should remain united and deepen trade and cooperation to improve intra-continental trade, which would help enhance economic growth for the benefit of future generations.
Mr Gnassingbe further commended the Government for supporting private firms in efforts to actualise the nation’s industrialisation agenda, and expressed happiness that 75 per cent of the steel produced was consumed by the domestic market.
Commerce, Trade and Industry Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe said the plant had been established at the locally generated cost of US$20million which had expanded to US$300 million and had created about 1,000 jobs.
Ms Mwanakatwe said with the Government’s planned establishment of a Kafue Steel Industry Zone, the steel sector would create 20,000 jobs through supporting industries that had been earmarked for creation in Kafue.
Kafue Steel executive technical director Julius Kaoma said Zambia was sitting on one of the biggest ore reserves in the world, standing at one billion tonnes and the company would maximise this resource to achieve its plans of building Kafue into a regional steel engineering hub.
Dr Kaoma said Kafue Steel also intended to be investing in research and development to increase Zambia’s steel supply to regional markets, which included South Africa, Burundi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.