JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South Africa’s beneficiation policy discussions were currently too narrowly framed and should be broadened to recognise the inextricable link between the exploitation of the country’s high-quality mineral resources and the desire to stimulate a reindustrialisaiton of the economy.

In fact, the Manufacturing Circle asserted in its latest quarterly bulletin, prepared by Pan-African Research and Investment Services and presented by Dr Iraj Abedian on Wednesday, that the prevailing “downstream conception” of beneficiation could restrict the potential to derive the maximum economic benefits from the country’s key mining sector.

Beneficiation, he argued, should rather be about maximizing the socioeconomic benefits from the country’s mining industry in terms of employment, economic growth, multiplier effects in related industries, taxes accrued, and socioeconomic developments.

To achieve that all the upstream and downstream linkages in the mining value chain should be considered including mining supply industries, the inputs involved in the extraction and processing of the minerals, the application of these minerals to downstream industries, as well as the spinoff in related industries, such as water, power, transport, chemicals and telecommunications.

Abedian argues that it was precisely these sorts of linkages that had been exploited in other resources economies, including in South Africa, whose historical economic diversification had been underpinned by mining activities.

Recognising the strong link between beneficiation and further industrialisation would help the country gain greater advantage from its remaining unmined resources, which had a current estimated value of about $2.5-trillion across a range of commodity categories.

“We need to recognised and acknowledge the inseparability of reindustrialisation with our mineral beneficiation strategy,” Abedian argued, adding that the strategy should be conceived as a long-term plan for the “next century” of mining.