LUSAKA, Aug 31: Zambia and China will invest $28 million to supply power to Chinese firms which set up operations in the African country’s mineral-rich Copper Belt region, a senior industry official said on Friday.

Rhodnie Sisala, managing director of state power utility Zesco, said it would provide electricity to a new copper smelter the Chinese are building in the Chambishi multi-facility economic zone (MFEZ), 420 km north of the capital Lusaka.

“The total cost of providing power supply is about $27.8 million. It is expected that the project will be completed by August 2008 to enable the smelter to commence copper processing,” Sisala said in a statement.

Investors from China will build leach and brick-making plants, and others to treat slag from the mines into finished copper. Expansion of the Chambishi copper mine, owned by China’s NFC Africa, was also in the pipeline.

The government said earlier this year that Chinese companies would also set up manufacturing plants and agricultural processing factories in the Chambishi MFEZ.

Officials say China has pledged to invest $1.2 billion in two economic zones, including one for high-technology manufacturing firms in Lusaka. Of that investment, $900 million is earmarked for Chambishi.

In July, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said he would fight political opponents trying to limit or frustrate Chinese investments in the mineral-rich southern African nation.

The main opposition Patriotic Front party won parliamentary polls in the mineral-rich Copper Belt province, after its leader campaigned on an anti-China platform in 2006 presidential and parliamentary elections.—Reuters