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Business Reporter

Chinese-owned gold mining firm Ming Chang Sino Africa (Ming Chang), which has operations in Shamva (Mashonaland Central), Kwekwe (Midlands) and Odzi (Manicaland), intends to carry out further exploration work to guide expansion initiatives.

Several companies from the Asian economic giant have made huge inroads into the Zimbabwean economy in terms of investment, which is expected to grow further following ZimTrade’s recently concluded Zimbabwe-China Business Forum, which ended in Beijing, China on Friday.

The Asian giant, the second biggest economy in the world after the US, now holds the number one spot in terms of investment into Zimbabwe, according to Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency (ZIDA)

As part of corporate social responsibility and along with investments into expansion programmes, Ming Chang Sino Africa committed to undertaking road infrastructure rehabilitation initiatives in the locations that host its operations to link the communities to agriculture produce markets.

Ming Chang Sino Africa is looking to increase gold output, and this will see further significant investment into exploration, which dovetails into the country’s target to build mining into a US$12 billion sector by the end of this year.

In Odzi, the company is currently doing open cast mining and has indicated the quality of deposits on its operations will also determine its expansion programmes to be funded internally.

The company commenced operations at the gold mine in Manicaland’s Odzi area about 30 kilometres outside Mutare after investing millions of US dollars to procure new state-of-the-art equipment.

The company partnered with locals to extract gold on the lucrative deposits where 60 have been employed since commencement of operations in May.

“We are currently doing open cast mining and it’s cheaper in terms of production costs, but the cost will rise as we go deeper,” said the company which has 16 claims.

As part of giving back to communities, Ming Chang Sino Africa last week celebrated International Children’s Day with one of the communities it operates from by donating school fees to twenty students as part of their corporate social responsibility.

This follows similar donations the company has made annually since the company handed over the primary school to local authorities in Shamva after completing construction works in 2016.

General manager Liang Guo Du said this at the handover ceremony, which was attended by students, parents and school development association officials.

“We want to reaffirm our commitment to the communities in which we work across Zimbabwe and emphasise that children are the future, they are the superstars of future that’s why we invest in them,” he said.

Mr Du said his company was laying a foundation for the Shamva community to compete beyond their small town for employment and professional success and opportunities.

“Today we are planting a seed from the bottom of our hearts and we want to challenge the children to work hard and prepare for greater challenges in life. Every child deserves a decent education, that’s why we invested in this school and made sure there was furniture and computers,” he added.

Ming Chang Primary School head Itai Mutizwa said the school had grown since opening in 2016 to 650 students, 337 of which are girls. Mr Mutizwa appealed for more support to grow the school.

“We were given furniture which we have been unable to maintain when we opened and now we have computers that are being outdated because we still haven’t been connected to the grid.

We also need two new classroom blocks because our school is growing and children are not hot-sitting. Teachers are commuting from as far as Bindura which is costly for them and compromises on the quality of education including for our exam classes. That’s why we also need accommodation for teachers,” said the school head.

Ming Chang plant manager Mairos Kariza said the company was reviewing its corporate social responsibility strategy to be more comprehensive and extend beyond ongoing roads rehabilitation and maintenance projects around the country where it operates from as well as drilling boreholes in rural communities.