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Zambia can very soon emerge as a big investment destination for Indian firms looking for agriculture land to produce various crops.
The Zambian government is keen to attract Indian investment for commercial agriculture and is ready to give 25,000 hectares of land on a 99-year lease to a single investor for cultivating rice, wheat, maize, cotton and jathropha.
Zambian high commissioner in India Keli Walubita said his country, till recently an importer of food grains, has started exporting the same to its neighbouring countries -- Congo, Tanzania, Malawi Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The country exported food grains worth $100 million in 2005-06.
India, one of the biggest investors in the Zambian mining sector, its economic mainstay, can now look into opportunities of investing in areas like agriculture, manufacturing and IT.
Speaking at an interactive session organised by the Merchants' Chamber of Commerce in New Delhi, Walubita said Zambia is ready to introduce a single window system to facilitate more Indian investment.
A number of Indian companies have started investing in Zambia from 1996. Sterlite Industries, which the Zambian government has selected as its strategic partner for reviving Konkola Copper mines, the biggest one in Zambia, is one of the top Indian investors there.