Zambians in India Join in National Day of Prayers

ZAMBIAN diplomats accredited to India and Zambians resident in India have prayed for common challenges affecting Zambia and India such as fuel and weakening currencies.

Zambia’s High Commissioner to India Judith Kapijimpanga said the rising crude oil prices had pushed both the Zambian Kwacha and the Indian Rupee down with this year the Rupee falling down to 14.5%, making imports costlier.

“Both Zambia and India are heavily dependent on imports and have no control on prices resulting in petrol and diesel prices continuing their upward march in Zambia and India,” she said.

Kapijimpanga said the high oil prices were hurting Zambia’s and India’s growth in many ways thereby urging Zambians to be aware that the challenges they were facing regarding the weakening of the Kwacha and the rise in fuel prices was affecting many countries.

“The Mission is concerned about the weakening currencies resulting from fuel because it foresees an increase of the trade volume between Zambia and India to over USD 1 billion by the end of the year 2018,” she said.

Kapijimpanga said this had been mostly due to the injection of money in the Zambian economy through the EXIM funded projects and the other Indian Companies that were using private capital.

“The Mission estimates that the amount of Investment is expected to have an additional increase of USD 8.8 billion by 2019/2020 which would amount to an estimated total of over USD12.8 billion,” the High Commissioner said.

She said this had been due to Zambia’s competitive advantage as one of the best investment destinations in the world.

“More Indians have officially expressed interest to invest in building multi-speciality Hospitals, building roads, railways, metros, air services and setting up satellite for economic use,” Kapijimpanga said.