By 
Mupika Sericulture Company Zambia Limited, a subsidiary of Wonderful Group of Companies, is stranded with 10 tonnes of silk fabric worth about K4.5 million due to export permit delays by the country’s Ministry of Agriculture.
From its initial establishment in 2012, Wonderful Group of Companies has grown as a Zambian industrial investment which has had an impact on both livelihoods of local people as well as the country’s economy.
Wonderful Group, the parent company of Mupika Sericulture, has pioneered and managed green field manufacturing establishments.
Media reports indicate that the establishment now has four fully operational businesses namely Marcopolo Tiles Company, Mupika Sericulture and Silk Company and United Capital Fertiliser Company.
The investments have resulted in creation of over 1,700 direct jobs and over 5,000 indirect jobs up and down the value chain.
Mupika Sericulture, which is currently recruiting farmers in Muchinga, Northern, Southern and North-Western Provinces, sometime back invested US$35 million into silk plantations which will result in the creation of more than 15,000 direct and indirect jobs in the next five years.
Company project manager Chewe Mulenga revealed that the company has halted production of silk fabrics because the Ministry of agriculture has delayed granting an export permit to enable it to export the fabrics.
Chewe said this in an interview on Thursday, December 08,2022 from one of Zambia’s towns, Mpika.
“We applied for a permit to export silk from our Mpika operation, but it is taking long, so what we have done is halting production because the silk we produce is just laying idle in the storage and we are
worried that they can go to waste,” Chewe said.
Chewe indicated that a tonne of silk fabric fetches more than K450,000 per tonne with ready Chinese and European markets.
He believed sericulture is a very lucrative farming venture which if widely rolled out will change the country’s economic trajectory for the better.
Zambia’s Agriculture Minister Mtolo Phiri was not available for comment as his phone kept on ringing and he could not respond to a text message while his permanent secretary Green Mbozi advised to call him back, each time his phone rang.
More than 10,000 trees were earmarked to be planted on its farms and the other 5,000 from its out-grower schemes across the country.
This would result in creating 10,000 jobs and 5,000 jobs throughout the grower schemes.
Currently, the company is developing the plantation and production facilities sit on 6,000 hectares of land.
“Our intention is to get 10,000 hectares of land but we ended up with 6,000 hectares, so the other 4,000 will be met through out-grower schemes,” he said.
Mulenga said more than US$10 million would be invested in Mupika Sericulture to expand the plantation by 2,000 hectares of mulberry trees and increase production facilities.
An additional investment would result in creating a further 1,500 jobs.
He said the increase in the processing facilities has allowed the company to export finished products after adding value.
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