Young businesspeople that are wanting to get involved in the mining industry should broaden their horizons and not limit themselves by focusing on South Africa alone, as there are many opportunities in the rest of the African continent, Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu told delegates at the 2016 Youth in Mining, Procurement and Transformation Summit, in Johannesburg, last week.

“It is understandable that young South African businesspeople want to play a role in the local mining industry. “However, there are also a lot of mining activities going on in Zimbabwe, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and throughout the rest of Africa, and these are opportunities that should not be overlooked,” she said.

The Minister commented that she was aware that there was a widespread sentiment that the mining industry was in decline, owing to the weak state of the global economy and generally low commodity prices.

However, she noted that the mining sector was cyclical in nature and, therefore, was likely to improve in future, thereby providing significant opportunities for those businesspeople who were able to ride out the market’s headwinds.

“Mining requires people that have a long-term vision and who are committed to seeing a project develop and operate over the course of 20 or more years. “There is no place in the sector for those who have only short-term, get-rich-quick plans, as a deep commitment is required to achieve success in the sector,” stated Zulu.

The Minister emphasised that new entrants into the mining sector required a number of attributes to succeed in the industry, including vision, boldness and determination, along with the will to work hard.

She highlighted that, according to the National Development Plan, by 2030, at least 90% of the new jobs that will be created in South Africa will be made possible by small and emerging enterprises.

“This means that the small business sector will have to create about 800 000 jobs a year by 2030,” Zulu explained.

The Minister acknowledged that this would be “a very tall order”; however, she was of the view that the mining sector would play a “very critical role” in the creation of these hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Further, Zulu pointed out that there were substantial opportunities for young businesspeople to be involved in the beneficiation of minerals, saying this was an area of the economy that South Africa and Africa broadly had failed to fully capitalise upon.

“We have been talking about comprehensive downstream beneficiation of Africa’s mineral resources for many years and young people now have a major opportunity to ensure the continent benefits fully from its mineral wealth at long last,” she asserted.

The Minister also revealed that she was in discussions with Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane to have a transversal agreement signed between the Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) and the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR).

Zulu explained that having a transversal agreement with the DMR would provide the DSBD with an opportunity to inspect what opportunities existed in the local mining sector for small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs).

“I often receive calls from young people who are owners of small companies, who are deeply frustrated because they have not been able to enter the mining sector. “They attribute their exclusion predominantly to large companies, which they believe are preventing them from entering the industry.

“Therefore, the DSBD and the DMR are looking into ways to open up the sector to SMMEs and ensure that young businesspeople are given greater opportunities to enter the mining industry,” she concluded.