Zambia is negotiating a critical minerals agreement with the United States of America after separating the deal from a $1.5 billion health funding pact signed between the two countries.
Zambia’s Foreign Minister, Mulambo Haimbe, disclosed this on Thursday during the signing ceremony for the health agreement.
Haimbe said the two agreements had initially been linked, but Zambia insisted that they be separated.
“There was this Memorandum of Understanding on health and another on critical minerals, and we were saying that these need to be decoupled, and this has been done,” he said.
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The minister said negotiations on the critical minerals agreement were still ongoing but declined to provide further details.
Zambia had previously resisted an arrangement that would directly link U.S. health funding to greater American access to its mineral resources.
Haimbe did not specify the minerals being considered under the proposed agreement.
Zambia is the second-largest copper producer in sub-Saharan Africa after the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Reuters
