JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The mining summit is closed to the public to ensure robust debate, Department of Mineral Resources spokesperson Jeremy Michaels says. This is in sharp contrast to the 2008 Mining Summit that was fully transparent.

Michaels reports that the leadership of South Africa's mining industry is meeting to ensure that government, organised labour and organised business agree on a strategy to position South Africa's mining industry for sustainable growth and meaningful transformation.

"We are still a sunrise country and we want to be ready and competitive as a country," Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu told Mining Weekly Online on the eve of the summit, at which the Mining Charter will be reviewed.

Shabangu said that there was a determination to ensure that the South African economy benefited optimally from the next resources upturn and to avoid a repeat of missing the opportunities presented during the minerals boom just past.

Michaels reports that the Mining Industry Growth, Development and Employment Task Team (Migdett) is embarking on a process to ensure that the industry is well-placed to take advantage of the inevitable economic upswing.

He says that Migdett, which was established in late 2008 to help the industry manage the negative effects of the global economic crisis and to save jobs, has more recently been focused on devising a strategy to achieve higher growth.

The summit will, Michaels says, chart a course for the industry to realise its full potential and to agree on a set of steps to be taken by government, business and labour to ensure that South Africa's mining industry grows and transforms in a sustainable and meaningful way.

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