State mine firm set to start production

The state-owned mining company, African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation magnesium mining companies(AEMFC), would launch its first mine within a month, the director-general of the Department of Mineral Resources, Sandile Nogxina, said yesterday. He would not be drawn on what minerals would be mined, except to say that they were "strategic" and that some of the prospecting rights that AEMFC had acquired had graduated to mining rights.

Funding for AEMFC may come from the state-owned Industrial Development Corporation, the Public Investment Corporation and from the African Development Bank. The company could well be the lightning rod for the nationalisation debate, giving the government and, by extension, the African National Congress, participation in the mining sector without incurring the enormous cost of nationalisation or risking the flight of foreign investors...