The European Union says energy and agriculture are key sectors for continued investment in the Zambian economy. And Lafarge chief executive officer, Emmanuel Rigaux, says concrete roads are a very strong solution and alternative for Zambian roads. Gilles Hervio, Head of Delegation to Zambia and EU representative to the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, said in an interview during a familiarisation tour of Lafarge in Lusaka on Friday that a total of 484 million euros had been earmarked for developmental projects in the energy and agricultural sectors next year. We have the potential to finance 100 million euros per year in Zambia for various projects. We intend to move with the next programming exercise which is 11 CDF; we will have more or less 500 million euros to support Zambia in the next five years. We are actually discussing with the Minister of Finance to see what will be the best use of this money and certainly energy and agriculture appear to be very strong candidates, Hervio said. In addition to the two sectors, Hervio also pointed to governance and justice as being other areas of continued financial support. And Hervio said as the EU was financing several roads in the country; it was keen to see what alternatives there were in constructing roads with an emphasis on concrete. We are very interested to see what are the alternatives to build roads are, to move to concrete. And we will move to finance energy, which is another area where we may need to use cement, so we may need to have other partnerships with industrial companies such as Lafarge, he said. Meanwhile, Rigaux said Lafarge was continuing to invest in various expansion capacity projects. “We are not only investing in the capacity to produce more construction materials, we are also investing in our capacity to bring to the market new construction solutions. Concrete roads in many applications are a very, very strong solution and alternative for Zambian roads. Our largest investment so far has been this plant which has enabled the Zambian construction market to grow and also enabled Zambia to export. Cement was in fact mentioned by the Minister of Finance in his budget speech as a key export so that is the result of the investment we made a few years ago,” Rigaux said. Rigaux further revealed that Lafarge is working in partnership with the Road Development Agency to develop concrete roads. “We are working with them in two directions; one is to develop an economic model, which clearly says when it is best to have a concrete road as its much better adapted,” said Rigaux. The Post
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 09:52:17 +0000
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