Chromium accounted for 8% of South Africa’s mining revenue in June 2024, says PWC South Africa lead economist macro analysis Dr Christie Viljoen, up from 5% in 2023.

Quoting Statistics South Africa data, Viljoen showed that platinum group metals dropped from 28% in 2023, to 22% this year, with coal down from 27%, to 24%.

Viljoen spoke at Chromium 2024, held in Cape Town.

He indicated that mining sales from South Africa reached R806-billion in 2023, with the industry employing 500 000 people directly.

Mining mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in South Africa jumped to R10.1-billion in the financial year ending June 2024, with a total of 32 deals.

In the corresponding period in 2023, this was R1.5-billion, captured within 24 deals.

PWC expected M&A activity to grow, albeit with fewer, but higher-valued, deals.

Viljoen said this would be driven by demand for the minerals and metals feeding the green economy.

He added that the megatrends influencing the global economy included climate change, demographic shifts (older vs younger populations), a fracturing world order and tech disruptions.

Viljoen said climate change posed a “serious and growing threat” to the world’s ability to produce essential commodities, such as extreme heat impacting opencast mining operations, such as in the iron-ore sector, and drought affecting the production of lithium and cobalt, for example, as mining was a water-intense industry.

As for South Africa’s economic outlook, Viljoen said the current lull in loadshedding and the formation of the GNU had injected some much-needed positivity into the local economy, despite the fact that real economic change was yet to become visible on the ground.

The PWC forecast was for headline inflation to reach 4% in 2025.

Real GDP growth for 2025 in an upside scenario was 1.8%, but 1.4% in a baseline scenario and 0.5% in a downside scenario.

Even if this number picked up, it was not yet sufficient to make a meaningful impact on unemployment, noted Viljoen, with this only starting to happen at 3% to 4% GDP growth.

He said South Africa was in a better position that 12 months ago, but added that it still “had a long way to go”.