Agriculture remains a key driver of economic growth and poverty reduction. Government’s strategic focus in the agriculture sector is to achieve food security, promote crop diversification, as well as increase productivity and value addition.

The Government of the Republic of Zambia has embarked on the development and commercialisation of nine Farm Blocks by making land available for large scale investment to the private sector. The whole Farm Block is expected to be about 100,000 hectares in size. The core venture land is in extent of 9,350 hectares, and the commercial farms, in extent of between 1,500 and 5, 000 hectares. Applications are being sought from private sector investors to develop the Core Venture and commercial farms by putting up appropriate infrastructure that will support their agro-business activities. This will also help the development of the small, medium and large scale farmers through Out-grower schemes for cash-generating agriculture activities for both local and international market.

To encourage investment of large scale and commercial farmers.
To simplify agricultural land delivery to would be local and foreign direct investors, the Zambian Government has annexed more than 1 million hectares of virgin land from the traditional sector to the state.

The Government of the Republic of Zambia through the Ministry of Agriculture has set aside large portions of farm land and Water areas for promotion of fish farming as pond and Cage/pens respectively for commercial Aquaculture targeting foreign and local investors.

• Zambia has the potential to grow the Aquaculture to surplus production of fish that can be the main source of staple protein food for the SADC region.
• Zambia has the potential to feed the whole African continent taking into account her comparative advantage in land, water and favourable climatic conditions for fish production.
  Investment into fish feed production and storage facilities and a commodity warehouse is very viable in Zambia.

Commonly used fish preservation, processing and storage facilities are deep freezers, cold rooms, smoking kilns and drying racks provide another opportunity.

The private sector still has a window to invest into fish hatcheries and fish preservation facilities and warehouses for commodities such as fish feed and other aquaculture inputs.

With its vast water resources and coal reserves, Zambia offers abundant investment opportunities for hydroelectric power generation, supply and distribution. The country has well over 6,000 MW of hydroelectric generating potential, and only 2,393MW has been developed. Demand for the other forms of energy which include renewable energies has also seen significant growth in the recent years.

Zambia is in hurry to increase power to meet the growing demand. The demand for energy, electricity in particular has been growing at an average rate of about 3 percent per annul mainly due to the increased economic activity in the country especially in the agriculture, manufacturing and mining sectors, as well as increased activity in the region on the continent.

To increase power generation capacity a number of projects are being undertaken. These include:

1. Kariba North Bank extension (360MW)
2. Kafue Gorge Lower Hydro (750 MW).  This project is critical for Zambia and the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP);
3. Itezhi-tezhi Hydro Power Project (120MW)
4. The 300 to 900 megawatts thermal power plant by Maamba Collieries.
   The following power generation projects, which are predominantly hydro, are among several others open for investment;

   a)    Kafue Gorge Lower on Kafue river with an estimated 750 MW estimated capacity;
   b)    Batoka Gorge on Zambezi river with an estimated capacity of 1600 MW;
   c)     Devils Gorge on Zambezi river with estimated capacity of 800MW; and
   d)    Mpata Gorge with an estimated capacity of 540 MW.

The vast potential in the tourism sector in Zambia, with its natural beauty (including the Victoria Falls, which is one of the most renowned beautiful transcendental Seven Natural Wonders of the World) and the wealth of wildlife have yet to be fully exploited.  Zambia has 19 national parks and 34 game management areas with a total of 65,000 km2 set aside for wildlife conservation.

The relatively underdeveloped infrastructures as well as inadequate supply of competitive accommodation are some of the areas that offer great potential to investors.

to promote the sector through development of essential infrastructure.
Top of the list – promoting the development of:

• Kasaba Bay (Northern Circuit) and
• Livingstone Tourism Zone
• Northern Circuit (Kasaba Bay)
  Government, through the Ministry of Tourism, aims to spearhead the development and establishment of a world class conference center and hotel facilities in Livingstone. Zambia does not have large scale conferencing facilities that can hold 10,000+ theatre style sitting participants. A 30 hectare site overlooking the Victoria Falls and Zambezi River has already been identified for this purpose. The proposal is to setup a Special Purpose Vehicle which will do a private placement of shares and be listed on the Lusaka Stock Exchange to be the vehicle that implements the project. The SPV will also spearhead the development of three-star and budget hotels in the provincial centers of Zambia which currently lack decent hotel accommodation.

The government has been forceful in introducing policies to stimulate economic growth and specifically in the manufacturing sector. The main emphasis has been on food processing and textile production. The growth potential in other industries is vast. Support measures designed to aid manufacturing enterprises in non-traditional sectors are being implemented

The Government has been working at expanding the country’s manufacturing base by reducing the cost of doing business through various initiatives. Currently, the Government is promoting the establishment of multi-facility economic zones (MFEZ) by providing fiscal incentives, quality infrastructure and a conducive regulatory environment to developers of these zones.

Government focus has been on facilitating creation of economic zones and industrial parks through land identification, Infrastructure provision (roads, water and sanitation, electricity). The following Zones are available:

• Chambeshi Zone has commenced operations
• New Zones in Lusaka-East,
• Lusaka-South and Lumwana are in progress