· The resource-rich Angola is pushing towards economic diversification with a refocus on the country’s mining sector.
· The country has been a major exporter of iron ore, gold, copper, diamonds and other minerals. Investors and producers are gearing up to tap the opportunities offered by the mining sector.
· According to business sources, more than half of the mineral deposits in the country have been explored.
The resource-rich Angola is pushing towards economic diversification with a refocus on the country’s mining sector. The country has been a major exporter of iron ore, gold, copper, diamonds and other minerals. Investors and producers are gearing up to tap the opportunities offered by the mining sector. According to business sources, more than half of the mineral deposits in the country have been explored.
The Angolan government has set a target to become the largest diamond producer in the world by value by the end of 2023. The country in 2016 became the sixth-largest diamond producer worldwide, and the third-largest in Africa, with an annual production of nine million carats. According to some published statistics, the estimated value of Angola’s mining industry was $1.2bn in 2019.A nearly-flawless 404-carat was mined in 2016 followed by a 130-carat diamond In 2019. These priceless diamonds were indicative of the vast untapped reserves of precious gems and minerals in Angola.
Very soon, Angola’s Buco-Zau mine is expected to produce one of the country’s most significant gold exports in nearly half a century proving that the prospects for Angola go beyond diamonds. The recent success of Buco-Zau according to Adriano Leal, director of the Buco-Zau e Lufo Mining Societies, is the result of the exploration of the site’s secondary deposit, which consists of alluvial gold. Many regions of Angola with significant deposits have been off the radar of geologists and engineers. As of now, Angola has licensed 28 gold mining projects out of which twenty are in the prospecting phase with the average production capacity for each mine estimated at 4.5kg a month of gold concentrate.
Angola has introduced new measures to support foreign investment, including enacting the Competition Law in 2018 and an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Law in 2020. Despite the opportunities, the lack of technology and know-how particularly in areas of metal mechanics, electronics, and engineering are major impediments to growth in the sector.
