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March 28 (Bloomberg) — Zambia is aiming to adopt an inflation-targeting framework in the next three years to better control price growth, a central bank official said.

The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee will probably consider a “position paper” on the introduction of a benchmark interest rate and inflation-targeting next week, Kellyford Nkalamo, the bank’s director of economics, said in an interview at the Global Interdependence Center conference in Cape Town today.

A stronger currency, helped by increased investment in the copper mining industry, helped to slow inflation to below 10 percent for the first time in three decades in 2006. The southern African nation is Africa’s biggest copper producer. Inflation accelerated to 9.8 percent this month from 9.5 percent in February, the statistics office said yesterday.

“An inflation targeting framework anchors inflation expectations better,” Nkalamo said. “It’s a step towards the independence of the central bank, which is the way we want to go.”

The bank, which currently targets money supply growth, is aiming to bring inflation down to 7 percent by December, even as rising oil costs and lower food production boosts prices, Nkalamo said.

The bank’s independence from the government may also become “enshrined in the constitution” following recommendations to the country’s Constitutional Review Commission, Nkalamo said in a speech at the conference.

“We don’t want a situation where, depending on who is the finance minister, they can interfere in the central bank,” he said.

While the Bank of Zambia has bought and sold foreign currency “to remove wild fluctuations” in the kwacha, “we don’t have a level in mind” for the exchange rate, Nkalamo added.

The kwacha has gained 5 percent against the dollar in the past six months, and was trading as high as 37 to the U.S. currency today.

Zambia, with a population of 10.4 million, is a landlocked country bordered by Angola, Zimbabwe, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nasreen Seria in Johannesburg nseria@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 28, 2008 10:49 EDT