African Nations Dig Deep For Mining Investors To Diversify Economies
From Cote d’Ivoire to Nigeria, African countries are in a hot pursuit of global mining investors in a bid to tap the growing opportunities in the sector as well as diversify their economies.
Cote d’Ivoire is hosting its first international mining and energy conference, SIREXE, with the aim of attracting global capital into its mining and energy sectors.
The target is for the mining sector, which attracted 500 billion FCFA ($833 million) in total investments and accounted for 3 percent
of the Ivorian GDP in 2023, to attract even more investments and contribute 6 percent to GDP by 2025.
The six-day long SIREXE event in Abidjan, which started on Wednesday, Nov.27, comes less than a month after Nigeria organised a mining roadshow in South Africa to court investors.
Nigeria will have a second mining roadshow in the space of a month in London in early December.
South Africa, which already boasts a vibrant mining sector, is not sitting back.
Africa’s largest economy will host its annual mining conference, Mining Indaba, in February 2025 in Capetown that will seek to attract more investors into the sector.
Why are African countries eyeing mining?
Africa is home to about 90 percent of the world’s mineral deposits and with countries seeking to diversify their economies, mining offers a potential way out of an over-reliance on commodity exports.
From Ivory Coast, where authorities are trying to diversify the economy of the world’s largest cocoa producer, to Nigeria where crude oil exports, a mainstay of the economy is floundering, mining is getting attention.
Africa’s metals are also essential to the rapid transition of energy systems away from fossil fuels.
The continent holds 19 percent of the global reserves of metals required to make a standard battery-powered electric vehicle. The continent has at least a fifth of the world’s reserves in a dozen minerals that are critical for the energy transition.
Organised under the patronage of the prime minister of Cote d’Ivoire, Robert Mambe, the SIREXE 2024 aims to promote investments in the
mineral and energy resources sector, particularly foreign direct investments.
The Ivorian government has made the mining sector an essential lever for the country’s economic growth. In the National Development Plan 2021-2025, the sector is presented as the second pillar of the Ivorian economy after agriculture.
“Our ministerial department is committed to making mineral and energy
resources the lever for a new phase of sustained and sustainable economic growth,” said Coulibaly Sangafowa, minister of mines, oil and energy, during his opening speech Wednesday.
Sangafowa said the ministry is “committed to implementing coordinated and proactive actions.”
“The development of an integrated national policy on mineral and energy resources is nearing completion. This policy will be based on coherent and substantial strategies and action plans. Legislative and regulatory framework reforms will be necessary to stimulate more national and international private investments in the sector and to ensure a better distribution of the generated wealth,” Sangafowa said.
While gold production still largely dominates the mining sector in Cote d’Ivoire, with 47 tonnes to be exported by 2024, diversification of the Ivorian mining industry is underway.
In particular, the country has revised its mining code to meet growing global demand for critical and strategic minerals, according to some investors attending the event.
Côte d’Ivoire’s mining potential is immense.
More than two-thirds of the Ivorian territory is covered by geological formations reputed to be rich in gold mineralisation.
The country has around 35 percent of West Africa’s birimian greenstone belts. This mining potential is extremely diversified. It includes gold, diamonds, manganese, nickel, bauxite, iron, columbite-tantalite, phosphate, lithium, copper-nickel-cobalt, chromium and ilmenite. These resources will be fully exploited in the years to come.
Recent research and exploration activities have brought promising deposits to light.
The Issia columbite-tantalite (coltan) deposit and the “Atex” lithium-tantalite deposit in the Boundali region will be among the largest in West Africa when they come on stream.
