The global commodities boom has sparked a new rush for the continent's minerals, pushing up demand for the firm's products.

AEL international markets executive director Vassie Ponsamy said that this R1-billion revenue figure represented about one-third of the group's turnover.

The Johannesburg-based company currently operated from five key hubs in Africa, namely Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, and Ghana, and it was looking to grow this.

The company was looking to establish a new presence in Egypt, where it planned on partnering with a local operator, as well as in another North African country.

Ponsamy said in a presentation at AEL's offices that the firm planned to expand its footprint from its existing hubs, into countries including Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Other markets that it was keen on were Mozambique, where Brazilian-miner Vale was building the massive Moatize coal project, and Angola, where diamond mining was creating new opportunities, he stated.

AEL had allocated R70-million in capital spend for Central Africa, where soaring copper prices were causing a mining "frenzy" in Zambia, said Ponsamy.

RISKS

While there was also much mining activity in the southern DRC that AEL wanted to take advantage of, he said that there were still risks in the country.

"There's a lot of dialogue around royalties," Ponsamy said, raising questions around whether government was getting its "fair share" of royalties.

"The second area is should there be a different form of taxation for mining companies?" he asked. "There's the typical argument in mining communities that is the company getting its fair whack of the revenue stream?"

Another issue that Ponsamy mentioned was the DRC government's announcement in April last year that companies would not be allowed to export concentrates for refining elsewhere.

All these risks meant that AEL operated with shorter contracts in the country than elsewhere.

"But we are pushing for longer contracts," he stated.

OUTSIDE AFRICA

Ponsamy noted that AEL was also keen on growing its market share outside Africa, mainly focusing on South East Asia, where it had already built a shock-tube assembly plant, and South America.

It had been working on an acquisition in Peru for the past 18 months, but prices were high, and companies were reluctant to sell in the face of the commodities boom, he said.

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