South Africa is positioning its vast mineral wealth and renewed investment drive as central pillars of economic recovery.
Speaking at the State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa highlighted mining as a “sunrise industry”, with ore reserves valued at more than R40-trillion.
Vast deposits of critical minerals
South Africa holds some of the world’s largest deposits of critical minerals, resources that are increasingly essential for global energy transition and advanced technologies.
Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe had revealed during his budget vote last year that minerals such as manganese, platinum, iron ore and chrome would play an important part in the local mining industry and the economy. This as the country manages the natural decrease in long-established resources such as gold.
After years of declining exploration spending, government has now committed new funding towards geological mapping and mineral exploration in a bid to unlock this potential.
“Just this week, the Industrial Development Corporation announced more than R300-million in funding for the Frontier Rare Earths Project in the Northern Cape.
“This has the potential to become one of the world’s largest and lowest cost new producers of minerals that are needed for smartphones, lithium batteries and other products,” said Ramaphosa.
Investor confidence
He said investor confidence in the sector was on display at the African mining conference, Mining Indaba in Cape Town this week.
Ramaphosa said government is also seeking to move beyond the export of raw materials. He emphasised that member countries of the G20 supported the proposal to expand local beneficiation of critical minerals and increase exports of finished products.
In 2024, the mining industry saw a 0.6% decrease in export earnings from the previous year. The industry export earnings were at R674-billion in export earnings. R586.4-billion was from primary minerals, but processed minerals contributed only R87.5-billion.
The idea of exporting more finished materials is aimed to capture more value in the country. To create jobs and strengthen industrial capacity.
