Zambia Tops Mining Conference Showcase with 37 Projects

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). The host country for the Mines 2006 Indaba, Zambia, has the largest number of pre-selected projects to be presented to mining investors. The event is to be held in Lusaka at the end of November and comes from an initiative between the EU and SADC (Southern African Development Community) to promote investment in the region. For related news item see September 28, 2006 – Africa – 150 New Mining Projects Through 2010 and Counting.

The EU-SADC partnership program’s (ESIPP) preliminary data shows that Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe have the majority of projects under consideration. South Africa, the traditional mining giant of the region, only has two projects in the bulk minerals and diamonds categories.

The leading four countries have a total of 69 projects, which are predominantly in the precious metal and base metal categories, and Zambia, very much in current focus among international miners, has 37 projects. The base metals category takes seventeen of the host country’s representation and the remaining 20 are in the precious metals category.

European, African, Canadian and Australian investors will discuss project proposals and the negotiation of partnership agreements. A total of 101 new and high-quality business development projects in the mining sectors of the region will be presented at the conference, which is the fourth in a series of sector partnership meetings.

At present, the mining sector in the SADC region is extremely buoyant and mineral prospecting activity is running at a high level. A sustained level of exploration is leading to the discovery of major, profitable mines across the range of commodities. Mining continues to be a major sector of the national economies of the region by contributing an average of about 60% of foreign exchange earnings, 10% of GDP and 5% of total employment.

In global terms, the SADC region contributes about 72% of platinum group metals, 55% of diamonds, 46% of vanadium, 40% of chromate, 26% of gold, 15% of manganese and 8% of copper.

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