Chinese buyers of Zambian copper will start paying for some of their purchases in Chinese yuan from next year, Denny Kalyalya, Governor of the Bank of Zambia (BoZ), has said. The shift will begin with Chinese mining producers that already settle their Zambian tax obligations in…

Chinese buyers of Zambian copper will start paying for some of their purchases in Chinese yuan from next year, Denny Kalyalya, Governor of the Bank of Zambia (BoZ), has said. The shift will begin with Chinese mining producers that already settle their Zambian tax obligations in yuan, before any wider roll-out. Dr Kalyalya disclosed the plan on Tuesday in Bangkok, Thailand, on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank annual meetings. It is the boldest step yet in Zambia’s quiet move to reduce its dependence on the United States dollar. For the first time, the country’s most valuable export will be paid for, in part, in the currency of its largest bilateral creditor.

“That’s the starting point,” Dr Kalyalya said.

The decision builds on ground the central bank has been preparing for a year. In December, Zambia became the first country in Africa to confirm it was accepting payments in Chinese currency, after mine operators began using yuan in October. The BoZ has since built up yuan reserves worth CNY1.3 billion, equal to about US$191 million, according to BoZ director of financial markets Emmanuel Pamo. He disclosed the figure during the central bank’s monetary policy briefing last month. Copper settlement is the next logical step, moving yuan from tax receipts into export earnings.

Dr Kalyalya said Zambia was also discussing a currency swap arrangement with China. He made clear that such a deal only makes sense if enough yuan flows through the Zambian financial system. He went further, signalling that Zambia wants future Chinese loans issued in renminbi rather than dollars.

“We also hope that new lending could also be denominated in renminbi. That would help a great deal,” he said.

That is where the real prize lies. Zambia owes large sums to Chinese creditors, and those debts have largely been paid in dollars that the country must first earn and then convert. Market analysts at trading news service Newsquawk note that for a country in Zambia’s position, yuan earned from copper can be recycled straight into debt repayments without a round trip through the dollar. That cuts conversion costs and exposure to dollar shortages, both of which have punished the Kwacha in past crises. Kenya has already moved some Chinese loans from dollars to yuan, a switch analysts say could save it about US$215 million a year in debt service.

The move does not mean China will set the price of Zambian copper. Analysts say the metal will still be priced off the London Metal Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange, both quoted in dollars. What changes is the currency in which a cargo is invoiced and paid, handled at the treasury level rather than on the trading floor. The immediate effect on the global copper price is therefore expected to be limited. The questions worth watching are how large a share of Zambia’s copper exports will move to yuan, and whether other mineral producers heavily exposed to China follow.

The timing places Zambia firmly inside a wider global trend. The renminbi has become China’s top currency for settling external receipts and payments and the world’s second-largest currency for trade financing, according to the People’s Bank of China’s 2026 RMB Internationalisation Report. African banks have increasingly linked into China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, Beijing’s yuan-based alternative to the SWIFT network. For Zambia, which is chasing an ambitious target of three million tonnes of copper a year, the currency in which that copper is paid will matter as much as the volume shipped.

The announcement also comes as the Kwacha shows signs of strain. The local currency has slipped from about K18 to the dollar three months ago to between K19 and K20. Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research executive director Zali Chikuba has described the movement as normal fluctuation in a volatile global market, rather than a cause for alarm. A steady inflow of yuan alongside dollars could give the central bank another tool to defend the Kwacha. Whether it does will depend on how much copper money actually changes currency.