Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema’s re-election hands investors the policy continuity they sought, while negotiations on a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme provide an early test of whether a second term can turn economic stabilisation into sustained growth.<\/p>\n
The copper producer is emerging from years \u200bof economic turmoil after becoming the first African sovereign to default during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Hichilema’s first \u200cterm was dominated by a lengthy debt restructuring and IMF-backed reforms, while drought, power shortages and a weak currency tested the recovery.<\/p>\n
Results released by the election commission in the early hours of Tuesday morning showed Hichilema received roughly 60% of valid votes, compared with 38% for his main challenger Brian Mundubile.<\/p>\n
“For investors, Hichilema offers continuity,” said Stuart Culverhouse, \u200bChief Economist and head of fixed-income research at Tellimer. The challenge now will be to build on gains in macroeconomic stability, \u200blower inflation and fiscal discipline while accelerating growth and investment, he said.<\/p>\n
“His government has already said they would \u2060seek a new IMF programme if re-elected, so that may be the first test for investors.”
\nZambia’s 2033 dollar bond, the country’s sole international \u200bbond, was bid at 97.72 cents on the dollar on Tuesday, broadly unchanged despite a weaker backdrop for African debt markets.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23533,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-42962","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The copper producer is emerging from years \u200bof economic turmoil after becoming the first African sovereign to default during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.","published_date":"","news_description":"The copper producer is emerging from years \u200bof economic turmoil after becoming the first African sovereign to default during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42963,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42962\/revisions\/42963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=42962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}