Zambian Ambassador Ibrahim Mumba underlined on Monday the excellent bilateral relationship between his country and Saudi Arabia in various sectors over the past several years.

“Saudi Arabia has shown for the last 45 years its friendship with Zambia. It has maintained its mission in Lusaka even if we have much earlier closed our embassy in the Kingdom,” Mumba told Arab News.

Mumba was his country’s first ambassador to Saudi Arabia when Zambia reopened its embassy in the Kingdom after several years since it was closed.

He said that such friendship has been demonstrated time and again with officials from the Kingdom visiting Zambia and vice versa.

“Seven delegations have come since my arrival on March 8, 2013 to assume my post as Zambian ambassador to Saudi Arabia,” Mumba said. He said that Zambian Agriculture Minister Robert Sikhinga also visited for the Saudi-African meeting on food security.

A high-ranking official of Saudi Aramco also visited Zambia on his personal capacity. In fact, he added, officials from Saudi Aramco visited Zambia two times.

“The friendship between the two countries is further shown by the assistance extended by the Kingdom to Zambia to finance various projects through the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD),” he said.

He said that two years back, his first year in the Kingdom, he requested for financing for the rehabilitation of University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. It is the largest hospital in Zambia.

“We were granted $20 million through the SFD and the hospital rehabilitation is almost complete,” Mumba said in an exclusive interview.

The Kingdom also supplied urea fertilizer to Zambia at the cost of $18 million and the SFD contributed $12 million out of the $50 million needed for road projects.

“We have also requested for assistance for a 800-bed hospital for women and children. We are in the process of preparing the needed documents for submission to the SFD,” he said.

Zambia has also requested processed fuel worth $250 million from Saudi Aramco.

“However, the accomplishment I treasure most is the Joint Permanent Commission (JPC). The two government signed in February 2010 a memorandum of understanding called ‘Cooperative Agreement’ regarding this,” he said.

He said that representatives from the two countries will meet at the end of this month to hold talks on the implementation of the guidelines regarding the various sectors covered by the memorandum.

He added that since the Zambian Embassy has just been re-established in the Kingdom, the bilateral trade is not that much yet. “However, efforts are being exerted in this regard. Part of the delegation for the JPC will be businessmen from the private sector,” he said.

As far as investments are concerned, he said that Zambia offers many incentives such as 100 percent free repatriation of profits and no exchange controls.