HARARE (Commodity Online): Africa’s one of the poorest nation Zimbabwe is on way to recovery with its mining sector, which is the backbone of its economy, showing signs of rapid growth.

The reason for the soaring growth in the mining sector is the revised mining policy of the country, which was loaded against investors till now.

In 2009, Zimbabwe change most of its mining policy which was received well by miners especially the Gold and Copper diggers.

According to reports mining sector will grow by 40 per cent in 2010. Anticipated increases in Platinum and gold production and moderate performance in other minerals is expected to spur the growth.

Gold production is expected to grow by 24.6 per cent while platinum production is set to rise by 1.2 per cent.

Gold prices have soared from $700 per ounce in 2007 to the current average of $1,130 per ounce.

Platinum prices also shot up from just under $1,000 per ounce in January last year to about $1,600 by the end of last year.

As a result, the mining sector, which was earmarked to contribute 2 per cent to Gross Domestic Product in 2009, is expected to make up 40 per cent to GDP this year, the highest compared to other sectors such as agriculture and tourism.

Massive investments in platinum have been made already and the government expects that output to increase this year. Nearly all gold mines have opened.

At the moment China is the only serious investor because of its huge appetite for minerals in Zimbabwe.

All the major Gold producers in Zimbabwe have targeted growth in output following the introduction of various measures such as the removal of foreign exchange surrender requirements and full retention of marketing proceeds.

The country’s biggest gold miner with five gold mines, Metallon Gold Zimbabwe, recently indicated that its mining capacity would expand by 74 per cent by next month as it targets an annual production of 250,000 ounces in the next three years.

The mining group, with a monthly capacity of 16,000 ounces of gold, was producing 4,000 ounces as of December although it was targeting this to reach 12,000 ounces by next month.

Mwana Africa plc-owned Freda Rebecca Mine will access $10 million from the Industrial Development Corporation for major refurbishment that would result in the mine ramping up production to 30,000 ounces of gold per year.

In terms of platinum, Zimplats is expected to increase production during the year as preliminary evaluation work on the second phase of the expansion programme has commenced and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2010.

Ore mined at Zimplats has been on the rise from 492,000 tonnes in the December quarter of 2008 to 797,000 tonnes in the September quarter of last year.

The phase will consist of a 2 million tonnes per annum underground mine, a concentrator module of the same capacity and related infrastructure.

Anglo Platinum will begin initial production at between 85,000 and 120,000 ounces of platinum in concentrate in a couple of years.

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