The ManicaPost
Zimbabwe’s is producing about 95 000 carats of diamond, 68 percent below the targeted output, Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa has said. But gold production, year to date has been on an increase on the back of policy interventions and firming global prices of the yellow metal.
“As for diamonds, we doing 95 000 to 100 000 carats a month, which is bad,” said Minister Chidhakwa at a National Consultative Forum workshop held in the capital last week.
“We should be doing about 300 000 carats to 350 000, which indicates how the area has failed,” he said. According to the Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Statement, the country is targeting 2, 6 million carats of diamonds this year. Cumulative diamond output for the six months to June 2016 were at 972 765 carats. Diamond firms lost production time in February when Government moved in at Chiadzwa to consolidate the sector.
The country is losing out on lost diamond production from the three concessions, which are not yet operational. On a positive note, gold output for the nine months to September improved, bringing in $614 million in export revenue, 6 percent above prior year comparable period.
According to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the country has an estimated underground gold reserve of around 13 million tonnes. Between 1980 and August this year, Zimbabwe extracted only 586 tonnes of gold.
Gold production reached its peak in 1999 at 30,2 tonnes and recorded its lowest output in 2008 where production volumes totaled three tonnes.
Official figures show that in the first half of the year, gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refiners increased 18 percent to 9,6 tonnes compared to 8,1 tonnes during the same period in 2015. Annual production for the yellow metal is projected to reach 24 tonnes in 2016. – Bh24.
