Long-awaited amendments to South Africa's mining laws are due to be detailed next month, the country's mining minister Mosebenzi Zwane said Monday at the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town.
"This has to be a year of action -- a lot of decisions have to be made. We want to bring clarity to the mining laws and create certainty," Zwane told a press briefing, confirming the mining law amendments will be gazetted before the end of March.
Zwane has been under fire in the media for months over his government's foot-dragging over amendments to the mining laws. The current amendments have been on the drawing board since December 27, 2012, the Chamber of Mines said.
The amendments are going through provincial assemblies but have yet to navigate their way through Parliament.
"This year, mining is turning the corner. We want to ensure the wealth below the soil is enjoyed by all." the minister said.
More than 6,000 delegates and 22 government ministers arrived in Cape Town for the annual Mining Indaba aimed a bringing scarce foreign investment into a struggling South African mining industry.
The Chamber of Mines said Monday at the conference the South African industry had lost 60,000 jobs in the last five years, from an industry that may be declining but still employs 460,000 people and earns 7.1% of the country's gross domestic product.
South African mines lost Rand 38 billion (around $2.86 billion) in 2016, but revenues improved, along with commodity prices, in the second half of the year, the Chamber's CEO, Roger Baxter, said at the opening of the conference.
"We are seeing green shoots, but we just worry about frostbite," Baxter said, alluding to the uncertainties that hang over South African mining through the unfinished amendments to the mining laws.
The numbers of mining companies in attendance at the Indaba are up by around 50% this year after five years of decline, and optimism appears to be taking root.
"I think we are pretty much at the bottom of the cycle. A lot of companies have restructured themselves to make money even at these low margins," said Jacques Erasmus, the head of global mining for KPMG.
But economist Dambisa Moyo, the keynote speaker, painted a gloomy picture of the world economy, suggesting the US would see three interest rate hikes this year before going into recession at the end of 2018. She saw hard times for African mining in a world of growing protectionism.
With a nod to US writer Mark Twain who once famously had to deny false reports of his death, Mark Cutifani, CEO of mining group Anglo American who took the stage after Moyo said: "The reports of the demise of African mining have been grossly exaggerated. But we do have a lot of work to do."
