05 Dec Interview with H.E. Chibamba Kanyama, Ambassador Embassy of the Republic of Zambia
Ambassador, I’d like to have an assessment of the historic deepness, importance, and growth of the bilateral relations between Zambia and the U.S., particularly in the last 10 or 15 years.
We have had two sides of this relationship. Before 2018, we didn’t have a very sound relationship with the USA in terms of diplomatic arrangements. In 2018 we had the US ambassador to Zambia recalled due to certain misunderstandings, and that sort of put us in an awkward position. Zambia didn’t have full contact with the US government because the office of the USA in Zambia was relegated to consular services only. So, with the change of government in 2021, this relationship has again, been reignited. It’s strong and stable, and we wanted to remain stronger than ever before because having a solid relationship with the US government helps you as a country to consolidate your position economically, and politically, in terms of security and other benefits that come out of such partnership.
Since 2021, what areas, topics, and sectors have Zambia and the U.S. developed a deeper cooperation and fruitful agenda in?
The first one has been the elephant in the room. What happened before 2018? Zambia was struggling with huge external debt. And the economy slid significantly with the increase in the cohort levels. I wouldn’t say that anything has changed as much since then, but there’s been a gradual process to rectify what may have gone wrong before then. So, since the restoration of the full diplomatic relationship between the USA and Zambia, we have focused on what we call economic diplomacy and that has been our key priority area. And there are a lot of things that come to mind here. The first one is to ensure that we have significant US investments in Zambia. Zambia maintains relationships with a lot of countries, including China. China has had solid relationship with Zambia, particularly in the area of maintaining supply chains and investments in the mineral sector. The mining sector has been the focus of the Chinese government over the past few years. And it has invested quite significantly in infrastructure like airports and a road network.
However, as a country, we are saying we need another strong partnership with the US government because the two countries are different in their approaches, how they approach investment, how they approach value addition to an economy, and how they look at labor issues. They differ. So, we thought we needed a mix and we seek to leverage our relationship with the US being a solid and biggest economy in the world, and having it to invest in Zambia, including under the public-private partnerships such as in infrastructure development. So, we have here the Millennium Challenge Corporation that is coming on to unlock growth into the Zambian economy by putting in significant infrastructure that will support Zambia’s value chains, for example, into agriculture. That is our focus. So that has been our key priority.
We also have the US government pulling resources together and coordinating efforts towards the investment in the Lobito Corridor project which is a railway line so that we can have passage using the Angola seaport into the USA market and other markets. The project is moving forward very well. Two weeks ago, there was the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the US and Zambia for this particular project. And to us, it comes in as a very significant one. We also have investments in electric batteries, EV batteries which will support the US market. As you know DR Congo and Zambia have got the critical minerals required for the manufacturing of clean energy as well as these EV batteries. So that’s another area of our focus.
My desire as an ambassador is that we go beyond the infrastructure side. We get to companies that will invest in value addition. This is manufacturing. We want a company from the US that invests in energy. We have a shortfall in the entire region so we want companies that are willing to invest there. We are looking for US companies that must invest in agriculture. We have significant arable land in Zambia, and yet we have significant huge food deficits in the region. So, we need to go beyond peasant farming and our commercial farmers. We want farmers who can go huge scale, able to supply about eight countries, but farming from Zambia, these are the investments that we’re looking for. We’re looking for tourism. So far USA is a major player in our tourism industry, but we want to increase the level of visitors to the country.
Since you mentioned economic diplomacy, what are the effects of this work since 2021? In other words, has the investment inflow already improved?
Yes, have witnessed some renewed interest in the USA particularly, again, in the critical minerals. This is where the largest interest is. We have a lot of companies that are positioning themselves to do mining into critical minerals. So, this is where I would say US businesses are responding very positively. We also see a huge interest in energy investments. A lot of USA companies are putting more emphasis here that they want to be key players in clean energy investments. So, that again, is a very positive indicator of how we are slowly gaining the confidence of the USA businesses. In agriculture, we haven’t had much, but we also want to exploit the opportunities for AGOA.
What are your key priorities for 2024?
One is to increase our participation and the level of products that we export into the USA market under AGOA which is due for renewal next year. So even before the renewal, we want to ensure in 2024, we have Zambian businesses fully oriented to understand that there is a huge market here where they can invest. And my other priority is that many companies and businesses are not aware of Zambia and what we’re able to offer. So, the branding of the country and getting it known across all states of the USA is a critical priority for next year. So, we are planning to have a lot of roadshows working hand in hand with the US Chamber of Commerce to have roadshows across several states in the USA. Some of it’ll be with the president. We still agreeing on which ones the president has to come to and we are already arranging which ones will be attended by the Ministers of Commerce or Agriculture.
We will also have others led by the Zambia Development Agency and other government departments, including the private-public partnership organization of Zambia who are coming here to showcase some of the potential infrastructure projects for which we need US investors, and then other arrangements are working hand in hand with US companies and diaspora organizations to have trade and investment missions into Zambia. This is where we want to take about 10 to 15 business people three times in 2024. So, we are talking about 30 companies visiting Zambia over the next year. That will be a big achievement for us. So, it remains a key priority.
We also want to maintain the relationship with the US government, not only maintain it but enhance it. We have to understand what their concerns are about our democratic space in Zambia and possibly respond because USAID is a key arm of the US government supporting the Zambian economy and we wouldn’t like any shrinkage in terms of support. We want that to increase. So, by continual collaboration, we’ll be able to get the maximum support from USAID. So, if we can get US government entities next year understand us better and increase their level of support in terms of health, education, and other social sectors, then we have won.