South Africa has long held grand ambitions to transform its vast mineral resources into higher-value products before shipping them abroad. For the most part, those plans have not materialised, for various reasons. However, we believe the time is right to revive them and devise a comprehensive beneficiation strategy for the nation.

Value addition has been punted as an economic priority for decades. Former president Thabo Mbeki spoke of the need to build “strong” domestic beneficiation capacity; his successor Jacob Zuma cited it as one of the nine pillars of his economic growth agenda; and Cyril Ramaphosa has said local processing could boost Africa’s economy by 12% by 2050...

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