Published: 03 September 2013

Zambia's statistics agency estimates that a re-basing exercise later this year will show that the country's US$20,7 billion economy is a fifth bigger than currently measured as its mining industry has expanded.

Africa's biggest copper producer has "completely" changed structurally since 1994, the current base year used for calculating the size of the economy, John Kalumbi, director at the Central Statistics Office said yesterday by mobile phone from Lusaka.

"The mining sector was in disarray at that time,"said Kalumbi.

"In the last three or four years the mining sector has changed in terms of structure and contribution.

There are other sectors that have come on board in the last 10 years or so and these have also completely changed the structure of the economy."

- Bloomberg

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