Johannesburg: Global Diamond Network said South Africa should fix its “declining” junior mining sector as the country still has “amazing” mineral deposits that can be effectively mined by its entrepreneurs.
Mining Weekly quoted the network director John Bristow as saying that the weakening of South Africa’s junior diamond mining sector was worrisome.
“I’m very concerned about our junior sector. We need it. We’ve got entrepreneurs, black entrepreneurs and new entrants. This sector should be where we are focusing. We actually have amazing deposits,” he said.
“We need to go back into the junior space and fix it because we can actually turn this sector around quite quickly.” Bristow claimed that South Africa had the “best diamonds in the world”.
He also said that it was challenging to raise money in South Africa, owing to adverse government policy and a “dysfunctional” Department of Mineral Resources.
South Africa was the world’s fourth largest diamond producer by value at 7 percent of the global share, according to an evaluation by independent diamond analyst Paul Zimnisky.
