Zambia is the world's fourth largest copper producer and the largest producer of cobalt. Although copper output is decreasing, new reserves are being discovered but are yet to be exploited. The copper industry has over the years grown to ern over 80 percent of the country’s export earnings, producing just less than 15 percent of GDP. With further investment, especially after the sale of the mines to private investors, copper is envisaged as having a much longer productive life span than the 15 years forecast for current mines. Zambia, furthermore has cobalt deposits in excess of one billion tonnes in one area and about 3.5 million tonnes in another, making it the producer of a fifth of the world’s cobalt reserves.

Other significant mineral products include gold, silver, zinc, lead, gem-quality emeralds, amethyst, coal, selenium, limestone, and uranium. Zambia also has reserves of phosphates, fluorspar and iron ore.

• In order to ensure favourable investment prospects in the mining sector, the Mines and Minerals Act provides numerous incentives including:
• Duty-free imports and exemption from value added tax (VAT) for all machinery and equipment, including any specialised vehicle;
• Deductions on prospecting expenditures during the year incurred, with deductions able to be passed on to shareholders;
• Deducations of capital expenditures on producing mines from profits during the year the expenditures were made; and
• Deduction of expenditures on inactive mines from income generated by producing mines, up to a maximum 20 percent of the income tax otherwise owed.

Several manufacturing campanies also operate in the country to support the mining industry, like those in heavy machinery, construction, gases, engineering, lime production, energy and transportation.