CAPE TOWN; President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia said on Monday that the government intends to prevent another debt default, while the country’s finance minister stated that debt discussions should be finalised by June’s end.
In an interview with Reuters conducted during the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town, Hichilema said, “Restructuring our debt is one of our top goals.”
Minister of Finance Situmbeko Musokotwane told Reuters that debt negotiations would conclude in June.
Zambia, Africa’s second-largest copper producer, became the first sovereign default of the pandemic age in 2020, when its debt hit 120 percent of GDP. According to official government figures, its debt was $31.74 billion at the end of 2021, of which $17.27 billion was foreign debt.
(This article is updated to include an interview with Reuters in paragraph 2)
