The Minister of Mining and Mining Development Honourable Winston Chitando has told delegates of the Mining Indaba in Harare that Zimbabwe, which has been suffering from economic hardships, has mineral resources but lacks Capital.
Chitando was giving an outlook of Zimbabwe’s Mining Sector in the presence of the country’s Acting President, Retired General Constantino Chiwenga, who was also the guest of honour at the Indaba.
“Zimbabwe has a Human Capital that has been tested worldwide but what it lacks is Financial Capital,” said Chitando.
The Minister said that Zimbabwe would need investors to help with Capital to extract different minerals that the country has.
Chitando mentioned Zimbabwe’s aim to supply 20% of the world’s Lithium, a mineral that is used on batteries which power electric gadgets such as laptops and mobile phones and also electric vehicles.
“We believe we have the potential to actually account for 20% of global demand when all known lithium resources are being exploited,” said Chitando.
Demand of Lithium is expected to rise as electric cars are take over from vehicles that use fossil fuels such as diesel and petrol dues to their cause of pollution.
Besides Lithium, Zimbabwe has 30 known occurrences of copper but has lacked the Capital to extract the mineral resource.
The country also boosts of over 30 billion tonnes of iron ore, besides extractions that have been made by the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO).