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The Government is determining how to structure the sale of the country’s first international bond and is seeking advisers as it aims to raise money to fund mining development, Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa has said. He will soon meet Finance Minister and Economic Development Patrick Chinamasa to discuss the plan ahead of the release of the country’s Budget, scheduled for next month.
“We haven’t worked out how much we are going to raise and who is actually going to work in putting together the bond,” Minister Chidhakwa said in an interview at Mimosa Platinum Mine near Zvishavane at the weekend.
Minister Chidhakwa recently told the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries conference in Bulawayo that the Government was considering a bond sale to create a fund to finance mining. The Government, which has the world’s second-biggest platinum and chrome reserves, is compelling mining companies to sell or cede 51 percent of their local assets to indigenous Zimbabweans or the State.
Companies including Rio Tinto Plc, Mwana Africa Plc and Anglo American Platinum Ltd are mining minerals and metals ranging from diamonds to gold and platinum in Zimbabwe.
Mimosa is an equally owned venture between South Africa’s Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd and Aquarius Platinum Ltd. The platinum industry needs as much as US$5,3 billion if it is to expand to produce more than 500 000 ounces of the metal and to construct precious and base metal refineries, the Platinum Producers Committee said in a report this month.
Production is forecast at 365 000 ounces this year, according to the group, which represents Impala, Anglo American Platinum and Aquarius. Minister Chidhakwa declined to comment further on the planned bond. – Bloomberg.
Online Reporter