Zambia’s state investment firm ZCCM Investments Holdings said on Wednesday it has partnered with Chinese-owned Wonderful Group to revive a near-century-old industrial-scale lime and cement production facility in the country’s Copperbelt region.
ZCCM-IH and Wonderful Group will develop and operate the integrated lime and cement production facility through a new joint venture vehicle named Ndola Lime Limited.
The joint venture will be backed by $30 million of new investment from Wonderful Group, ZCCM-IH said in a statement.
The move is meant to restore the 95-year-old facility to supply critical inputs to Zambia’s copper, construction and agricultural sectors, after operational difficulties at the facility led to insolvency in 2018.
The facility’s revival will be implemented in three phases, with the first phase focused on the construction and commissioning of a lime production plant with a capacity of 600 metric tons per day.
The second phase will deliver either a cement processing plant or a second lime production plant, ZCCM-IH said, and the third phase will be further expansion based on market conditions.
Wonderful Group will hold 55% of Ndola Lime through a $25 million equity contribution and a $5 million shareholder loan.
ZCCM-IH will hold the remaining 45% interest via the contribution of operating assets and the write-off of $9.8 million of historic debt.
(By Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and Chris Mfula; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
