SOUTH AFRICA: For the year ending in 2021, South Africa, one of Africa’s top mining nations, exported minerals worth 53 billion dollars.
“This was true despite obstacles including transportation, logistics, and border checks,” according to a statement issued by the Mineral Council of South Africa and provided to the Transcontinental Times.
“The sector produced 1.2 trillion Rands ( almost 53 billion dollars) of exports from minerals for the past year,” said Allan Seccombe Head of Communications at the Minerals Council of South Africa.
Mining in the country was once the main driving force behind the history and development of Africa’s most advanced and richest economy.
The country is home to some of the world’s largest gold mines and accounts for approximately 4.2% of the world’s portion of precious metals.
The majority of the country’s gold resources are located in the Witwatersrand Basin, one of the world’s largest gold placer deposits.
It is one of the largest gold deposits in the world and contains the majority of the country’s gold resources.
Diamond continued to be the most popular mineral, generating R24 billion in sales, or a 53 percent rise from 2020, according to a statement made public by the Council.
The Council’s chief executive officer, Stuart Baxter, stated in a separate statement that the organisation is still concerned about rail and port bottlenecks because, according to its estimate based on railed tonnages in comparison to Transnet’s intended tonnages for 2021, they will result in an opportunity cost of R35 billion.
The opportunity loss is R50 billion (3 billion US dollars), of which a third would have gone into the fiscus, if the rail network’s capacity for bulk commodities like iron ore, coal, and chrome is taken into account.
“While mining companies did extremely well financially there are underlying challenges which are demanding our full attention.”
“We are working closely with Transnet to address the
constraints that are preventing SA Inc from fully benefiting from high commodity prices and
strong demand for our minerals,” said Baxter.
He added that another area of concern is that mineral production by volume has not increased significantly and that costs continue to accelerate faster than inflation.
While the past few years have proved an exception, price increases have generally outpaced commodity price improvements.
However, compared to 2020, the diamond sector lost over 7.5% of its overall employment.
The overall production of diamonds increased by 14.8% from 2020.
The only country on the continent that produces more gold than South Africa is Ghana.
Meanwhile, other countries from the Southern Africa trade bloc called the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) like Malawi are making headways toward establishing a state-owned mining company.
Also Read: Malawi Turns To Mining Amid Tobacco Woes
