Publication

This report examines the troubled attempts by Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zambia to introduce base metal beneficiation into their mining industries. (Note: Beneficiation involves improving the physical or chemical properties of metals, especially in preparation for smelting.) The four countries’ problem is a straightforward one – beneficiation is one of the key ways they hope to industrialize and develop themselves, but Japan and China have stimulated their own beneficiation industries. As a result, the odds of being able to process certain metals outside of economical Asian “value chains” aren’t good. Or to put it differently, Southern African countries will most likely be exporting unprocessed raw materials well into the future.