Online Reporter
The local mining industry has once again exposed one of the country’s biggest economic paradoxes.
While mines are spending billions of United States dollars on goods and services every year, local manufacturers continue to capture only a tiny fraction of the real value.
The result is that employment, industrial growth and technological development are being exported alongside payments for imported mining equipment and supplies.
The figures presented at the Mine Entra Suppliers Symposium in Bulawayo this week and as we reported yesterday should serve as a wake-up call. Mining generated US$8,4 billion in revenue in 2025 and spent US$3,4 billion on procurement.
Yet only US$410 million worth of those inputs was actually manufactured locally. The remainder may have been purchased through local distributors, but the real beneficiaries were foreign manufacturers.
This is a missed opportunity of enormous proportions.
The Government has rightly identified mining as the engine of economic growth. Gold, platinum, lithium, chrome and other minerals continue to attract billions of dollars in investment, while authorities are pushing beneficiation and value addition to ensure more wealth is retained locally.
However, beneficiation should not end with processing minerals. It should extend to the manufacture of the machinery, equipment, chemicals, protective clothing, electrical components and engineering products that keep mines operating every day.
As Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe chief executive officer Dr Isaac Kwesu observed, stronger backward and forward linkages are essential if mining is to maximise its contribution to the wider economy.
His revelation that the sector has a multiplier effect of three means every dollar generated by mining creates another three dollars elsewhere in the economy. Imagine how much greater that impact would be if a far larger share of mining inputs were manufactured locally.
The opportunity is growing rather than shrinking. The mining industry is expanding rapidly, while investment in mineral processing and beneficiation is expected to push electricity demand from about 1 000 megawatts to more than 1 500MW within the next year.
New lithium processing plants, platinum projects and gold mine expansions will require pumps, conveyors, pipes, chemicals, valves, cables, fabricated steel, engineering services and countless other industrial products. These are opportunities that local companies should be preparing to supply.
Industry and Commerce Minister Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu was correct in describing this as “a huge opportunity”. Government estimates show that about 85 percent of mining procurement passes through local suppliers. Unfortunately, much of that expenditure eventually pays foreign manufacturers because locally made alternatives are unavailable.
Manufacturers must therefore, invest in modern production technologies, improve quality standards and expand capacity. Mines, on their part, should continue engaging domestic producers, clearly communicating product specifications and identifying areas where imports can be substituted without compromising efficiency or safety.
Government also has an important responsibility. Access to affordable long-term finance, competitive electricity tariffs, supportive industrial policies and efficient regulatory systems will determine whether manufacturers can compete with imported products. Equally encouraging is the planned digital procurement platform being developed with Buy Zimbabwe, which should make locally produced goods more visible to mining procurement officers.
Ultimately, local content is not achieved through policy statements alone. It is built by factories producing competitive products that mines are willing and able to buy. We already have the mineral wealth. We now need to ensure that this wealth stimulates factories, engineering workshops and technology companies across the country.
The mining boom should power a manufacturing renaissance that creates jobs, builds industrial capability and keeps more of the country’s mineral wealth circulating within the domestic economy.
