In general, Africa has not taken advantage of its abundance of raw materials. When calculations were done in the past, it was often concluded that adding value locally to locally mined minerals was not competitive with the enhancement of our minerals in distant developed lands. But with modern technology, things are changing fast and It is now great to see South Africans moving to beneficiate locally mined titanium products, for example.
The sums show that titanium derivative ilmenite is a candidate for a tenfold value upliftment if it is used locally to manufacture titanium dioxide pigment. This will limit ilmenite from KwaZulu-Natal going to Europe, Asia or America for $300/t and then come back as titanium dioxide pigment at a ten-times-higher $3000/t for use in the paint on our walls, the dye in our shirts, the paper with our signatures on, the toothpaste on our teeth and so much more. We Africans must see it as obligatory to move our abundant raw materials up the value curve whenever it makes business sense to do so.