ZAMBIAN MINISTER CONFIRMS COPPER DIVERSION
Minister of Mines Patrick Chitambala
confirmed that Zambia had ended copper shipments through South
Africa and announced that its state-run mining company had
closed down its liaison office in the white-ruled republic.
    He told the official Times of Zambia newspaper in an
interview the government was diverting all mineral exports
along rail routes to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Beira in
Mozambique. Chitambala declined to say what volume of copper
and other minerals were being shipped through these two ports,
but he said there had not been any problem with the new
arrangements.
    "So far our copper has been reaching its destinations
without hindrance," he told the Times.
    The Times of Zambia quoted unnamed sources as saying Zambia
exported 100,000 tonnes of copper through Dar es Salaam and
17,000 through Beira in the last quarter of 1986. Diplomatic
sources in Lusaka had earlier expressed doubts over Zambia's
ability to ship all its copper through Beira and Dar es Salaam
without causing massive bottlenecks at the ports.
    Chitambala also said that the state-run Zambia Consolidated
Copper Mines (ZCCM) had closed its liaison office in
Johannesburg, since it was now redundant.
 Reuter
