By NCHIMUNYA MIYOBA
Zambia China Economic and Trade Zone says the change of taxation policies in the country has promoted investors to invest out side the Multi Facility Economic Zone.
ZCCZ Corporate Affairs Manager Stephen Lindunda said the policies are no longer favourable to companies that wish to invest within the country as they are not constant.
Speaking during a presentation when the Kitwe Mayor Christopher Kang’ombe toured the facilities in Chambishi today, Mr Lindunda said the current tax policy are not the same as of that of 2007 which the company was given.
Mr Lindunda said the current tariffs do not make doing business at the Multi Facility Economic Zone (MFEZ) attractive to would be investors.
He said the initial incestives the company was given was more attractive as they were given a taxe holiday of five years to operate without paying taxes unlike the current situation were they are asked to pay within a year as long as they are a profit making entity.
He added that proper incentives are the country’s economic back born and that there is need to review the current tax policy.
He said proper taxes will allow company’s to produce goods and services as well as he economical for companies to invest in.
He further said that since inception in 2007,the company has created more than 8000 jobs and have spent about US$ 1.7 billion on infrastructure development.
He said the company has spent about 2 billion investments in the two economical phases in Chambishi and Lusaka respectively.
Meanwhile the corporate affairs manager said the high ZESCO tariffs have affected the cost of doing business at the facility.
Mr Lindunda disclosed that MFEZ had consultations with the power facility to find an amicable tariff that will be beneficial to the investors.
“We went to Zesco to negotiate with them to consider giving investor a different rate. Zesco refused the request and as things stand we are paying the same making ourselves very unattractive to investors,” he said.
Mr lindunda said the is need to have good policy formulation that will attract quality investment hence making the investors stay longer at MFEZ.
And Kitwe Mayor Christopher Kang’ombe said KItwe City Council has set aside 100 hectares of land to set up an MFEZ .
Mr Kang’ombe the local authority is interested to know If it was possible to structure a model on 100 hectares of land which is similar to the Chambeshi MFEZ and can be adopted by Zambian and foreign companies.
Mr Kang’ombe said the council is interested in learning how to use land as it has been done in Chambeshi but on a smaller scale .
He said the council also wants ZCCZ to second someone to be on the project which will be run by the Council in order to have an expert on the project and tap into their experience.
