Mining Weekly reports that according to Roger Baxter, CEO of the Minerals Council SA (previously known as the Chamber of Mines), a SA moderately more attractive to investors would catalyse the creation of 50,000 more mining jobs and an additional 200, 000 jobs overall.
He was speaking at the Africa Down Under conference in Perth on Thursday. Speaking a day after Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe announced a R20-billion, ten-year plan to boost exploration spend in SA, Baxter noted that, even in the absence of exploration, SA’s mining business had massive latent promise. “South Africa’s mining potential is huge. Even in the absence of a greenfields exploration boom in South Africa, mining investment could almost double in the next four years if the country was to return to the top 25% of the most attractive mining investment destinations worldwide,” Baxter told the conference. Issues undermining the competitiveness of SA’s mining and exploration sectors are mainly policy and regulatory uncertainty, costs rising at rates well above inflation, infrastructural constraints, restraints on exploration, a lack of trust between stakeholders and corruption.
- Read this report in full at Mining Weekly
- Read the MCSA’s press statement in this regard at SA Labour News
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