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Deputy Minister Moyo

Business Reporter
Government is working on a Statutory Instrument that will provide legal modalities for exporting chrome ore, Deputy Mines and Mining Development Minister Fred Moyo said.

Once it is in place, the Government will start issuing export permits to chrome producers. Several chrome mining companies have already applied for licenses after the Government lifted the ban on chrome ore exports in June this year. The Government imposed ban on chrome ore exports in 2011 to encourage beneficiation.

“We are finalising the Statutory Instrument . . . we have to export guided by certain legal rules. If we don’t do that we will have chaos,” said Deputy Minister Moyo in an interview.

The 2011 ban on exports was not the first as the Government in 2007 suspended raw chrome exports before lifting the ban in 2009.

After lifting of the ban on exports in 2009, the chrome sub-sector continued to experience challenges such as lack of effective accounting framework for chrome ore volumes and values that were being exported to Maputo Port, lack of a well-co-ordinated administration and monitoring framework for production, marketing and export of chrome ore and environmental degradation that resulted from uncontrolled mining of chrome ore.

Mr Moyo said that other mineral exports are guided by rules stipulated in the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe export regulations. “There are rules for gold exports; for platinum, nickel and all other minerals but we don’t have rules for chrome.”

The Government lifted the ban on chrome ore export to improve liquidity into the economy and to boost viability of the miners. The ban will allow for the export of up to 30 million tonnes of chrome ore.

ZimAlloys, one of the country’s largest chrome producer says it will realise about $225 million from the export of three million tonnes in four years.

Already, the Government has created a special purpose vehicle to facilitate buying and selling of chrome ore from small scale miners following the lifting of export ban on the mineral.

The SPV, to be comprised of the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Minerals Marketing Corporation Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, is meant to create efficiencies in buying and selling of chrome ore.

During the first half, chrome output is expected at 96 049 tonnes, against a revised annual projection of 500 000 tonnes.

The downward revision of output is premised on the prevailing low global market prices for ferrochrome.

Ninety five percent of chromium resources are geographically concentrated in southern Africa and Zimbabwe is estimated to host over 80 percent of the world’s resources of metallurgical quality chromite.