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Metals & Mining Theme, Coal
June 26, 2025
HIGHLIGHTS
Ensure transparency, policy clarity, and consistency for critical minerals mining
Geomapping resources, fast-tracking mining licenses
Emphasize value addition through local manufacturing, beneficiation, reskilling
African countries are looking to reform mining policies to attract investors to take advantage of the global demand for critical minerals, panelists told the London Indaba event June 24.
The High Commissioner of Zambia to the UK, Macenje Mazoka, said Zambia was ensuring its policies were reformed to ensure more fluid and varied investment in the mining sector.
"We constituted our mining capacity so that there is transparency around processes, around the acquisition of licenses to really ensure that there's confidence that's built in the various investment sectors," she said.
Zimbabwe Minister of Mines and Mining Development Winston Chitando said the country aimed for partnerships with various investors globally and had a "solid piece" of mining legislation that was policy-clear and consistent.
"We want to ensure we have maximum extraction of the minerals and we want to have maximum value addition of the minerals," he said.
"Mining is a long-term game and investors want to ensure policy clarity and consistency so that when they invest their money, they are certain when you put in your plans and you do your internal returns that you achieve what you are set to achieve," Chitando said.
South African Deputy Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources Phumzile Mgcina said South Africa had reviewed its policies to attract investors.
"Because we want to attract investors, we must also align our policies so that it could be easy for them to come and invest, she said.
The country had also adopted a critical minerals strategy and was continuing to review its policies to make them conducive for investors.
To attract investors, countries were also looking to geologically map their resources.
"In order to have a good offering on the table, you need to know what is on the table. So part of that is to get a sense of what are the wide variety of minerals that we have, critical rare earths as well, to really be able to put a good meal on the table for someone who wants to come and join," Mazoka said.
Mgcina said South Africa also had a system for fast-tracking mining licenses and rights applications and geological mapping.
"Exploration goes a long way, and we are inviting investors to come, but we must also keep in mind that we must invest by building infrastructure," she said.
Adding value locally to mined minerals was also high on the agenda of African governments, with Mazoka saying Zambia was looking at partnership opportunities and ensuring there was more manufacturing on the ground.
"That's one of the ways that we really want to push and develop the sector even further. I think the model of having raw materials going out of our countries is overplayed... and I think you'll find a lot of our countries feel the same way," she said.
Mazoka said it was no longer just the extraction model, with infrastructure corridors being refurbished and established, such as the Lobito corridor.
"The idea is that with the advent and the polishing up of these corridors, there are opportunities for more businesses to mushroom along those tracks," she said.
Chitando said that for Africa to develop, there had to be value addition and also collaboration among African countries to maximize value before export.
"Africa will not develop by exporting minerals in their own format because by doing that, you are exporting jobs, you are exporting value," he said.
Mgcina agreed: "For the longest time, we've been transporting and exporting our mineral resources without adding any value," she said, adding that now they would be exported with value, which also created job opportunities.
"We want to see beneficiation in different ways -- we are not saying we want infrastructure only, we want a beneficiation in terms of reskilling, in terms of value adding when we export the minerals."
Mazoka said she was not sure why there was pushback when African countries wanted to add value.
"We're being impacted severely with the geopolitics that are happening, so why the pushback in terms of working with our countries to ensure that we do get more value from our own resources? I think the approach of the partnership approach is probably more in line with where we would want to go because we also have to grow our economies," she said.
Mazoka said it also depended on how "critical" was defined, with some minerals being critical globally for the energy transition, which then became "extremely valuable" to origin countries as they developed these countries' economies and growth. Other minerals were more critical locally.
"But at the end of the day, it's really about creating jobs. It's about growing our economy, using the resources that we do have as effectively as possible. And I think that one of the biggest opportunities is this new tech transition and of course, the green economy and the whole energy transition," she said.
Mgcina said all minerals were critical, although which attracted investors at any given time depended on the global demand and markets.
She said in South Africa, coal remained a critical mineral due to its use in energy, while it was not considered critical elsewhere.
Chitando agreed, saying all minerals, including coal, were critical to Zimbabwe.
"We look at exploration, extraction, value and marketing. We would want each and every mineral which we have as a country to be explored, extracted and value added sufficiently to bring value to Zimbabwe," he said.
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