Zambian Copper To Go Through Congo

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31079, 7 June 1966, Page 13

Zambian Copper To Go Through Congo

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) LEOPOLDVILLE, June 6. The Zambian Commerce Minister, Mr Justin Chimba, yesterday announced an agreement with the Congo which could provide Zambia with a new lifeline for her vital copper exports.

Land-locked Zambia has so far depended almost entirely on the railways jointly owned with Rhodesia—which run through Rhodesia and Portuguese Mozambique—for exporting her copper. This route has been threatened in a dispute with breakaway Rhodesia over freight charges. Mr Chimba told a press conference yesterday that he hoped the agreement on railway rights with the Congo would eventually lead to about 60 per cent of Zambian copper being carried over the new route to ports for transhipment to Europe. He said “starting immediately” 10,000 tons of copper would be sent from Zambia through the Congo to the Benguela railway running to Lobito in Angola. Zambia intends to use the Benguela route and routes through Matadi, Congo, and through the Congo to Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, to ship

eventually 38.000 tons a month by the three routes. At present Zambia ships 61,000 tons of copper a month.