JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South Africa's new mineral beneficiation strategy had been developed and would soon be submitted to the Cabinet for approval, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said on Friday.

Shabangu told the National Council of Provinces Budget Vote Debate that the job-creating beneficiation strategy would facilitate economic diversification and expedite progress towards a knowledge-based economy.

"The mining industry continues to form the backbone of the South African economy, accounting for more than half of exports.

"The challenge, however, is that most minerals are exported as ores rather than high value intermediate or finished products," Shabangu said.

The beneficiation strategy would assist South Africa to turn ore into high-value intermediate products and finished products in order to leverage long-term benefits from the country's "substantial" mineral endowment.

South Africa's "sunrise" mining industry remained a top-five globally ranked host to reserves of platinum, chrome, manganese, phosphate rock, vanadium, titanium, fluorspar, uranium and nickel.

She said that there were prospects to mine magnesium and rare earth metals in South Africa, which would take the total number of minerals being mined in South Africa to 56.

The proposed mineral beneficiation programme would take advantage of South Africa's inherent comparative advantages and facilitate an "orderly" development of value chains.

SKILLS

Shabangu said that R280-million had been allocated for skills development.

The statutory Mining Qualifications Authority had increased the grants for artisan development and consideration was being given to inviting retired artisans to transfer skills to young, aspiring artisans.
There was a need to partner Further Education and Training colleges to train artisans in areas where there was significant growth in mining.

The mining, growth, development and employment (Migdett) task team made up of government, business and labour task team was working on sustainable mining-industry growth.

Migdett was dealing with issues in the way of South African mining's competitiveness and transformation.

The rehabilitation of derelict mines in the Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, North West and Northern Cape provinces was being guided by the health risks to communities, as well as the environmental impact.

The new Geosciences Amendment Bill would manage infrastructure development in dolomitic terrains and enable the statutory Council for Geoscience to become the custodian of all geotechnical data.