🇿🇲 Exclusive | Hichilema Lands in Cape Town to Court Mining Capital; Tightens Investment Pitch
President Hakainde Hichilema has arrived in South Africa ahead of the 2026 Africa Mining Indaba, stepping onto the red carpet at Cape Town International Airport at 15:30 on Sunday, where he was received by senior Zambian and South African officials and welcomed with full ceremonial honours.
His visit places Zambia at the centre of one of the continent’s most consequential investment gatherings, with organisers expecting more than 6,500 mining executives, policymakers, financiers and institutional investors under this year’s theme: “Stronger Together: Progress Through Partnerships.”
Hichilema is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the official opening on Monday, positioning Zambia’s mining economy as both an investment frontier and a strategic pillar in Africa’s evolving critical minerals supply chain.
“Our mission is to secure more investment into our country that will create more jobs for Zambians,” the President said on arrival, framing the Indaba as a platform for growth, employment, and long-term industrial expansion.
The trip comes as Zambia seeks to consolidate a reform-driven recovery story after completing its IMF-supported programme in late 2025, while the kwacha has shown renewed stability in early 2026, supported by improving reserves, stronger commodity receipts, and tighter fiscal discipline.
Mining remains the anchor of that narrative.
Zambia is one of Africa’s largest copper producers, and the government has signalled a sharper push toward value addition, formalisation, and investment partnerships that extend beyond extraction into processing, logistics and industrial development.
The President’s Cape Town engagements are expected to include bilateral meetings with mining firms, development partners and investors, as Lusaka intensifies efforts to attract capital into both large-scale mining and the governance of artisanal production, particularly as illegal mineral activity and gold rush dynamics have become a growing security and regulatory focus at home.
The Indaba provides Hichilema with a stage not only to market Zambia’s mineral wealth, but also to project policy coherence at a time when investors are weighing jurisdictional stability, environmental standards, and predictable regulation across African resource economies.
President Hichilema thanked Zambians for their support, adding: “We thank you for your prayers and continued support. Let’s get to work.”
For Zambia, Cape Town is more than a conference stop. It is a high-stakes pitch to global capital that the country’s mining sector, and the macroeconomy around it, is entering a more structured and investable phase.
© The People’s Brief | Ollus R. Ndomu
Hichilema Lands in Cape Town to Court Mining Capital; Tightens Investment Pitch
