eBusiness Weekly
Golden Sibanda
Discussions to explore challenges hampering growth in the production of key strategic minerals, gold and platinum, will take centre stage when the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe (CoMZ) annual meeting gets underway in Victoria Falls later this month.
Despite Zimbabwe boasting over 60 different minerals, gold and platinum will dominate AGM discussions given that they generate the bulk of mineral export earnings, which raked in US$3,62 billion last year.
This year’s chamber of mines conference will run from May 27 to June 1 with high profile stakeholders from Government, private sector and related industries expected to grace the event to discuss key issues.
The AGM to run over five days, will also convene a beneficiation workshop to chart the roadmap for beneficiation, milestones, prospects and key imperatives for growth of platinum and gold mining industries.
CoMZ chief executive Isaac Kwesu told Business Weekly this week that two symposiums will be held during the AGM each to individually discuss teething issues constraining growth of the minerals.
The minerals are key to the achievement of Zimbabwe’s vision of upper middle-income economy by 2030 where per capita income is expected to be around 3 500 per year.
“We are going to have symposiums. A symposium for gold and a symposium for platinum, and then we will have the main conference running under the theme; ‘Realising Vision 2030 Through Mineral Resources’.
“So there will be two symposiums that will run separately for two days. Platinum and gold are very critical and we want to understand where they will be by 2030 and how they feed into that growth of Vision 2030,” said Kwesu.
Kwesu said the miners’ AGM will dwell extensively on discussions to explore interventions Government and industry must come up with to drive gold production towards the target of 100 tonnes by 2023.
“On gold, (discussions will centre on) what needs to be done to achieve 100 tonnes by 2023. It’s about growth to say how do we get to 100 tonnes by 2023, then we will have discussions around other mining issues during the main conference,” Kwesu said.
Gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR) for 2018 hit a record 33,2 tonnes up from 24,8 tonnes the previous year as Government led stakeholder efforts to upscale production begin to bear fruit.
Of note was the continued strong performance in contribution by small-scale miners whose haul for the year jumped to 21,7 tonnes, while primary producers accounted for the remaining 11,5 tonnes.
The 2018 haul means Zimbabwe managed to surpass its 30 tonnes target set by Government and should give the sector a boost as it works towards the attainment of the 100 tonnes per year target within the next five years in line with Vision 2030 by which Zimbabwe should be an upper middle income earning country.
President Mnangagwa has said the mining sector together with other key sectors among them agriculture and tourism, should play an integral part towards the attainment of Vision 2030 with mining alone expected to generate US$12 billion worth of exports annually.
Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando, is on record saying Government is working on a three-pronged approach to make sure that it gets to 100 tonnes annually within the next five years.
“We are going to achieve this via a three -pronged approach. Firstly, Government through ZMDC owns a number of gold assets and Government is working to ensure that those assets are placed in a situation where they (can) realise their full potential.
“The second initiative, which Government has done, is to create an environment, where there is increased appetite for capital to flow into the mining space.
“The third initiative is to put in place funding mechanism for small-scale miners. Government is (also) coming up with the establishment of gold centres and these will be established and rolled out throughout the country,” Minister Chitando said early this year.
