The National Housing Bonds Trust (NHBT) has partnered with a Belgian firm, Enviro-friendly Building Solutions Worldwide (EBS), to mobilise financing for the construction of over 1,000 houses in Kitwe, Livingstone and Solwezi.
EBS is also finalising the acquisition of permits and licences prior to launching its operations in Zambia in a pilot phase of the NHBT projects. The housing solutions company will be responsible for mobilising construction finance from sources within their group.

OUTGOING Zambia Sugar Company, Managing Director, Paul de Robillard says Zambia sugar PLC will start generating about 40 Mega watts (MWs) of power once the expansion project is complete.

Two years ago, Zambia Sugar Company and government signed a partnership agreement of K1 trillion to expand operations and among other things to make the sugar company electricity self-reliant.
For Zambia Sugar company to generate power for its operations, it will use the bogus, a waste product from sugar refining.

THERE is need to take a keen interest on the likely impact the decline in pension funds will have on the economy, economist Chibamba Kanyama has said.

The growth of most pension funds in Zambia has been affected by the global credit crunch and some of the recently released financial statements from some pension funds have shown significant losses for the year 2008.
Some pension funds have been impacted by unanticipated claims from mining companies that seek to fully compensate retrenched employees.

It has also been observed that the poor performance in stocks on both the local and international markets as well as the poor performance of private companies that accessed these funds has also led to these fund recording deficits.
Kanyama noted that it was unfortunate that government had not fully captured the role of pension funds in the economy, adding that it was important to pay attention to the role of the funds because they were responsible for the recent expansion in domestic investments in the economy.

THE European Union (EU) has advised Zambian entrepreneurs to realise that they can still make profits despite the continued depreciation of the kwacha.

EU Economic Counsellor for Zambia, Francesca Di Mauro, said non- traditional exports (NTEs), which are mainly supplied from Zambia, are cheaper and more competitive on the world market this time when the kwacha has depreciated.
Speaking when she gave a presentation on the EU help desk presentation workshop on Saturday March 28, Di Mauro observed that despite a lot of debate currently going on concerning the depreciation of the kwacha, many people have not realised that Zambian exports are cheaper competing favourably on the international market.