Barnaby Mulenga, Zambia's permanent secretary of mines, said the country expected to complete talks to buy Glencore's stake in the Mopani copper mine within a month.
But Mr Mulenga declined to say how much of the stake ZCCM Investments Holdings, a state-owned company, was trying to acquire.
Zccm-ih now owns 10 per cent of Mopani copper, Glencore 73.1 per cent and First Quantum Mining 16.9 per cent.
Zambia wanted to increase its stake in The company after it fell out with Glencore over its plans to seal the Mopani copper business in early 2020.
But it is unclear how The cash-strapped zambian government, which defaulted on interest on a European bond last week, will finance the deal.
Glencore values the Mopani copper business at $704m, despite a first-half loss due to a $1.14bn impairment charge.
Mr. Muronga expects Mining Minister Richard Musukwa to announce the deal in the coming weeks, having said in September that both companies were ready to sell their entire holdings in the Mopani copper mine.
Mr Mulenga said Zambia would not have difficulty raising funds even without money from the Finance ministry.
'Resources attract money, so financing is the least of the zambian government's concerns,' Mr. Mulenga said in an interview Thursday.
He was referring to Mopani's copper mining business but didn't give further details.
Glencore shelved plans to leave its operations in charge and maintenance for 90 days after Zambia threatened to revoke its mining licence in April.
Mr Mulenga said the government's strategy was driven by a need to protect Mopani's jobs rather than a desire to increase its shareholding.
Relations between Zambia's main copper mining industry and investors are increasingly tense, in part likely to reflect action by Edgar Lungu, the country's President, ahead of elections next year.
The zambian government is also in arbitration over mining assets seized last year from billionaire Anil Agarwal's Vedanta Resources Ltd., in a case involving the Konkola copper mine, or KCM.
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