Ndola

Once the largest industrial centre of Zambia, boasting, among many high-powered sites, company facilities including a Land Rover vehicle assembly plant, Dunlop Tire manufacture, Johnson & Johnson, and Unilever, Ndola's economy shrank significantly between 1980 and 2000. Many closed factories and plants lie unoccupied in the town. A number of former industries such as clothing and vehicle assembly have disappeared completely.[4] Even though the term 'ghost town' can no longer apply to it, Ndola is yet to regain its economic glory of pre-1980 days.

There are no mines in Ndola itself, but the Bwana Mkubwa open-cast mine is only 10 km south-east of the city centre. Until their closure, copper and precious metals used to be brought from elsewhere in the Copperbelt for processing at the Ndola Copper Refinery and Precious Metals Refinery. Copper exports provide 70–80% of Zambia's export earnings, making the city very important to the country's economy.

The Indeni Oil Refinery in Ndola supplies the whole country with refined petroleum. It was repaired in 2001 after being severely damaged by fire in 1999. GL Africa Energy, through its subsidiary Ndola Energy Company Limited, provides 105MW of power to the National Grid of Zambia. Power is generated from heavy fuel oil supplied by the Indeni Petroleum refinery.[5][6]

Ndola is home to one of the country's national newspapers, the Times of Zambia, as well as its printer, Printpak. These run as one company called TimesPrintpak. Catholic church run printing press, Mission Press, is also located in Ndola. Mission Press operates as a commercial entity.

Ndola has huge limestone reserves which are believed to be among the most homogeneous of their kind in the world. Limestone has therefore become to Ndola's economy what copper is to the rest of the country, providing much of the wealth and employment (Lime is a major component in the production of cement; a cement plant getting its lime from limestone and manufacturing a limestone cement will consume well over 80 kg limestone per 100 kg of cement produced).

Between 1974 and 2009, Ndola supplied over 50% of Zambia's cement from a plant located some 5 km south-east of the heart of the city. This plant was called Chilanga Cement, Ndola Works. The parent company then was Chilanga Cement plc. Chilanga Cement ran two plants in Zambia: one built in 1949 at Chilanga (hence the parent company name) and the other built in 1969 at Ndola. In 2008, the new holding company, Lafarge Cement Zambia, completed construction of a brand new plant at Chilanga which would produce about double the volume of Ndola Works. By mid-2009, the new plant was still gathering momentum toward full production capacity, leaving Ndola still a significant player in the region's cement industry. Nonetheless, the combination of huge limestone deposits and existing transport infrastructure passing through Ndola has kept the city a very attractive destination for investment into cement production and related activities.

A second cement works is under construction in 2008.[7] In June 2009, countrywide advertisements were published to finalise staffing for this new cement plant.

Another important processing plant that is based on limestone in the area is Ndola Lime. It is Zambia's sole producer of Lime. Ndola Lime is located near the two cement manufacturing facilities. It supplies the mining industry as well as farmers who require agricultural lime. Ndola Lime company is wholly owned by ZCCM Investment Holdings, a parastatal holdings company via which Zambia's government maintains its active interest in the country's mining and closely related heavy industry.

The four processing plants (the cement plants, the lime plant and Bwana Mkubwa) have mining rights on land located very close to the traditional Chiefdom of Chiwala. Chief Chiwala is therefore a significant interested party to Ndola industry and economics.

Egyptian company Elsewedy Electric joined a consortium of local companies led by ZESCO Ltd (Zambia's electricity supply authority), and established a transformer manufacturing plant and an electrical meter manufacturing plant in Zambia in 2008. Both these facilities are located about 5 km south of Ndola city centre.

The Mukuyu Slave Tree (in Ndola, Zambia

• The Slave Tree or Mukuyu Slave Tree around which Arab slave traders held slave markets in the nineteenth century (a mukuyu tree is a kind of fig tree). It has fallen due to "termites".
• Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial ten kilometres west of the city centre, off the Ndola/Kitwe road, commemorates the site where the then United Nations Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld died in a plane crash on September 18, 1961 during the Congo Crisis.
• Lake Chilengwa 14 km E of Ndola at 12°58' S 28°45' E, was formed by the collapse of rock into an underlying limestone cavern, and has local cultural significance.