By Thomas Chidamba, in Bulawayo
The mining sector contributes in excess of 15% to nominal GDP, more than 65% to national exports, around 12% of fiscal revenue, attracts more than 50% of foreign direct investment and creates more than 45 000 formal jobs and in excess of 1 000 000 workers in the artisanal and small scale operators, Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe president Mrs Elizabeth Nerwande-Chibanda has said.
Speaking during the Zimbabwe’s premier mining, engineering, construction and transport expo, Mine Entra’s Women in Mining Conference, where she was the guest of honour, Mrs Nerwande-Chibanda said the mining sector is positively contributing to the country’s economy.
The theme of the Women in Mining Conference was: “Resourcing the future: Exploring and leveraging women’s potential in the mining industry.”
Mrs Nerwande-Chibanda said the mining sector has become a key pillar to the country’s economic transformation.
“Our mining industry has emerged to become a key pillar to the country’s economic transformation and attainment of the vision 2030’s goal of Zimbabwe becoming a middle-income economy.
“The sector is currently contributing in excess of 15% to nominal GDP, more than 65% to national exports, around 12% of fiscal revenue, attracts more than 50% of foreign direct investment and creates more than 45 000 formal jobs and in excess of 1 000 000 workers in the artisanal and small scale operators.
“Leveraging on our huge resource base the upside potential to expand the contribution of the mining industry through extraction and enhanced linkages. Government has already challenged the mining sector to take the lead in realising vision 2030 and has set a key milestone of a US$12billion mining sector by 2030,” she said.
Mrs Nerwande-Chibanda said societies can make use of diversity of talents and skills to help grow and benefit the country.
“We are here to challenge ourselves on how society can make use of the diversity of talents and skills that is help the populations. There is recognition that owing to a number of historical circumstances there have been acts that have stereotyped mining in particular and pigeon holed its recruitment processes and opportunities only to one gender and even demographics at the expense of the other.
“All of us must utilize and leverage on the multiplicity of our God given skills, talents, insights, and experiences to grown and benefit Zimbabwe,” she said.
Even though the mining sector has started the year on a low note, Mrs Nerwande-Chibanda promised that the industry will soon be on a full throttle.
“While the performance of the mining sector during the first half of 2019 was not encouraging, with the majority of key minerals having recorded output declines compared to previous year, we are upbeat that the mining industry will recover and achieve the desired targets as Government and private sector work together to address the key challenges affecting the mining industry.
“The medium to long term prospects of the mining industry remains bright, with output for most minerals expected to record phenomenal growth, Government continues to address the structural distortions and cost of doing business in Zimbabwe,” she said.
The mine industry is projecting 40 000 kg of gold, 15 000kg of platinum, 18 000 tons of nickel, 3,4 mullion tons of coal, 3,3 million carats of diamonds, 1.8 million tons of chrome and 80 000 tones of lithium this year.
