Adelaide, Sept 7, 2006 (ABN Newswire) - Zambia has come in from the wilderness and will as early as next year, be back to its heyday copper production outputs of the 1970s.

The upbeat message - a turnaround of the country's fortunes since major pullouts in 2002 dampened overseas investment enthusiasm in the African country's resources sector, was delivered today by Zambian Government Permanent Secretary, Mr Lennard Nkhata.

Addressing the Paydirt Media 2006 Africa Downunder Conference in Perth today, attended by a record more than 400 delegates, Mr Nkhata said a further US$1 billion was expected to be invested in new and existing mines in just the next three years.

"Australia is the leading investor in our resource sector and many of the post-2002 developments have been led by Australian mining expertise," Mr Nkhata said.

"This has in part contributed to a lift in our key copper outputs from 331,000 tonnes in 2002 to 372,000 tonnes in 2003, 374,000 tonnes in 2004 and over 402,000 tonnes last year.

"We expect to produce over 500,000 tonnes of copper this year and by next year, will be back to the 1970 heyday figures of 700,000 tonnes - a time when Zambia was recognised globally as a world-class copper producer."

Mr Nkhata said conducive legislation and mining incentives and healthier commodity prices, had revived the mining sector from its point of paralysis in 2002. More than US$1.4 billion in fresh capital had poured back into mine plant exploration and development projects since.

He added that Zambia's US$400 million copper-based Konkola Deep Mining Project (KDMP) - the largest such mine investment in the country - is expected to be fully developed by 2009, increasing its mine life by 30 years and helping lifting annual copper ore outputs from 2 million to six million tonnes per year.

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