LUSAKA, Wednesday, June 1, 2011 - Zambia's President Republican Rupiah Banda is tomorrow expected to launch the construction phase of Japanese company, Hitachi Construction Machinery Zambia Limited in Lusaka, with an initial US$15 million investment.
Hitachi is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of construction, mining and earthmoving equipment. This is the first ever investment into the manufacturing sector by a Japanese company and it is expected to add impetus to President Banda’s desire to create more jobs for the Zambian people.
The President has expressed joy that Hitachi has picked on Zambia for its investment and that, as a regional hub of southern Africa, Zambia will provide valuable services to surrounding countries.
The first phase of the project is expected to be completed by December this year and, if successful, the company shall undertake an expansion programme that will extend the services to other major industrial entities in the region.
Japan is one of Zambia’s largest cooperating partners and Hitachi’s ground-breaking investment is set to grow the two countries’ relations even stronger.
Zambia was recently ranked among the top 10 countries worldwide that have improved the ease of doing business for local firms in the past year while The East African magazine ranked President Banda as the 12th best performing African presidents among the 52 on the continent.
This is according to a statement from the state house public relations Office.
