the developed world has resulted in a near-total collapse of the Zambian indigenous textile industry. In the face of cheap used clothing, tailors' specialized production may be irrelevant - customers will buy the least expensive clothing available, irrespective of style. Those who might otherwise work at textile mills or clothing factories are left jobless, or else make significantly less money in the salaula resale business. Electric Battery Value Chain Zambia and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), two countries, that have more than 70% of the world's Cobalt reserves and an abundance of Copper, Nickel and Manganese have resolved to set up a Zambia-DRC-Executive Battery Council to oversee the implementation of the cooperating agreement for the electric vehicle battery value chain. The Executive Council's executive committee will be composed of President Hakainde Hichilema, his DRC counterpart Felix Tshisekedi, the Deputy Secretary General of the African Economic Community for the United Nations, as well as the President of AFREXIM Bank, as a financial partner. Also issued was a communiqué by the two heads of state that indicated that the two countries will also harmonize policies for the initiative. Zambia and the DRC signed the MOU in Lusaka Zambia on 29 April 2022. In July 2022, the African Export-Import Bank President Benedict Oramah, whilst in Lusaka Zambia, announced that a pool of investors had earmarked more than US$500.0 million to set up an industrial park for the purposes of adding value to the copper, cobalt, and manganese mined in Zambia. The investors will set up plants to process cobalt, copper, and lithium that are in Zambia and neighboring countries and establish a US$250 million Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) manufacturing plant. In July 2022, at the 94th Agricultural and Commercial Show in Lusaka, the managing director of the National Utility ZESCO, Victor Mapani announced that the company plans to deploy Electric Vehicle EV charging stations across the country in an effort to accelerate and promote the transition to EVs and enhance carbon emission reduction. In December 2022, on the sidelines of the ongoing US-Africa summit in Washington DC, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the United States of America signed an MOU toward the actualization of the electric vehicle battery value chain. Different US institutions and agencies such as USAID, the US Department of Commerce, the Trade and Development Agency, are exploring technical assistance for the Zambia-DRC EV supply chain.