By Maimbo Mweemba
Economist Chibamba Kanyama said the appreciation of the Kwacha will make it easier for Government to resume debt repayments.
Mr Kanyama said that the repayments will be coupled with the strong copper prices that have stood at over 9000 US dollars per metric ton since 2020.
“The positive movement in copper prices has allowed the Central Bank to earn reasonably healthy mineral royalties from the copper mining industry and has successively been able to sell about 648 million dollars to the market from January to July this year,” he said.
Mr Kanyama said that the strong copper prices and a possible program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) remain Zambia’s solution to dismantling the external debt arrears that stood at about 841 million dollars as of December 2020.
“The total arrears on interest paid on the debt should now be about 1 billion dollars given that the government defaulted twice on two token payments,” he said.
