THE Emerald and Semi-precious Stones Association of Zambia has called on government to put policies in place that will compel companies mining gemstones to deposit a certain percentage with the Bank of Zambia as reserves. In an interview, recently, association president Victor Kalesha said having such reserves in the Central Bank could serve as collateral when the country wanted to borrow. “I will talk of the gemstone part, I have had a concern for a very long time – we export every piece of gemstone that we produce in the country. We discovered the first emerald in Zambia in like 1928 and to date, we have no single deposit in our Central Bank as something that we have reserved for...