Though Zimbabwe has endured greater than 20 years of frequent unhealthy press linked to its politics, the unfavorable headlines haven’t prevented billions of {dollars} in mining overseas direct funding from flowing into the nation because the post-Robert Mugabe period started with the late strongman’s ouster in a military-assisted transition in November 2017.
Since 2023, the Zimbabwe Funding and Growth Centre has issued new mining licences value $3.52-billion, whereas present mining corporations are enterprise large enlargement initiatives. For instance, Zimplats, a unit of South Africa’s Impala Platinum, has invested greater than $750-million in enlargement, beneficiation, and vitality initiatives, whereas Mimosa, one other South African-owned platinum group metals (PGMs) miner, is investing greater than $200-million.
Lithium Rush
Hogging the brand new investments are initiatives targeted on lithium, a mineral essential for battery manufacture – and due to this fact for the vitality transition – that Zimbabwe has in abundance, with its present manufacturing accounting for 9% of world provide, based on London-based analysis and market evaluation agency Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
Many of the new lithium-sector traders are Chinese language corporations. Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt has been the largest spender up to now. Following its $422-million acquisition in April 2022 of Australian firm Prospect Sources’ Arcadia lithium venture, close to Harare, it dedicated an additional $300-million for a 400 000 t/y lithium focus plant, with manufacturing beginning in 2023. It subsequently invested $400-million in a 50 000 t/y plant producing lithium sulphate – an intermediate battery materials used within the manufacturing of lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate – which was accomplished in 2025.
Different Chinese language corporations energetic within the Zimbabwean lithium sector embrace Sinomine Sources Group, Chengxin Lithium Group and Yahua. Sinomine acquired the outdated Bikita lithium mine for $180-million in January 2022 and had spent a further $300- million to develop mining operations and construct a spodumene focus plant by mid-2023, asserting in October 2024 it deliberate to construct a $500-million smelter over the subsequent 5 years.
In the meantime, Chengxin Lithium Group and fellow Chinese language enterprise Canmax Applied sciences paid $77-million for the Sabi Star mine in 2021 earlier than investing $130-million to develop the mine and construct a concentrator, a venture that was accomplished in 2023.
Yahua introduced in February 2026 that it deliberate to construct a lithium sulphate plant on the Kamativi mine, which it runs in a three way partnership with the Zimbabwean State.
In July 2024, Zimbabwe’s State-owned Kuvimba Mining Home introduced that it had signed a $310-million take care of a consortium of unnamed Chinese language and British traders for the development of a lithium concentrator on the Sandawana mine.
Explaining Zimbabwe’s attraction to overseas lithium traders, Benchmark lithium product director Cameron Perks factors to the nation’s substantial reserves, accessible expertise, given its exploration and mining historical past, and relative coverage stability, which, nonetheless, has modified considerably following the sudden stoppage of all exports and the imposition of upper royalties.
Past lithium, overseas traders have invested considerably in gold and PGMs initiatives. Within the PGMs sector, JSE- and London Inventory Trade-listed Tharisa plc has, by way of its Karo Mining subsidiary, spent $241-million up to now on creating the Karo mine, 85 km south-west of Harare.
Commenting on whether or not the funding expertise in Zimbabwe matched expectations when the Karo venture was first introduced, a senior Tharisa govt stated: “When measured on a capital-intensity-per-ounce-of-production foundation, we’re monitoring effectively, taking into account that almost all of the infrastructure must be constructed for the preliminary ten years that has been deliberate, however we’ve got vital upside of a further 50 years of manufacturing, so this will probably be amortised over an extended interval.”
He doesn’t have any considerations about Zimbabwe’s mining funding local weather, stating: “We see Karo and the Zimbabwe jurisdiction very a lot according to our Tharisa mine [in South Africa] by way of improvement and executability. Abilities in Zimbabwe and technical data and expertise are extraordinarily excessive.”
Reflecting Tharisa’s perception that it ought to have management of your entire worth chain, the corporate plans to spend extra thousands and thousands in Zimbabwe, replicating its mannequin at Tharisa mine, the place it has pursued downstream alternatives over time.
Coverage Questions
For Benchmark’s Perks, what he describes as opaque royalty and tax constructions, alongside coverage unpredictability, are a trigger for concern for potential traders. Commenting particularly on the burgeoning lithium sector, he urges the Zimbabwean authorities to spend money on infrastructure, decide to coverage stability and contemplate being versatile on the in-country downstream requirement for lithium corporations.
“Zimbabwe was already exporting lithium focus, a value-added materials. It now desires to encourage chemical manufacturing. It may be finished, and we’ve got seen lithium sulphate produced, however it’s but to be seen if it would present financial advantages, particularly since it’s cheaper to do that stage of value-add in China itself,” he tells Engineering Information & Mining Weekly.
“Australia nonetheless receives large financial profit from mining and transport [lithium concentrate]. Arguably, the chemical manufacturing it has participated in to this point has been a internet unfavorable.”
Zimbabwe has for many years been the topic of unfavorable media protection – from the early 2000s, when the Mugabe administration seized white-owned farmland for redistribution to landless blacks to a number of disputed elections and the continuing controversy round an try to increase by two years the present phrases of the President and Parliament past their constitutional finish in 2028.
Nonetheless, Perks insists that, within the context of lithium-bearing international locations, Zimbabwe’s enterprise atmosphere “is above the African common”. Nonetheless, basically phrases, South Africa and Namibia “seem like safer for now”.
Reward Mugano, an economics professor and govt director of Africa Financial Growth Methods, a Harare-based think-tank, can be optimistic in regards to the prospects of the Zimbabwean mining sector, which accounts for 14.5% of GDP, generates about 80% of export earnings, contributes near 19% of presidency income and continued to anchor financial progress within the first quarter of 2026, supported by excessive gold, PGM and lithium costs.
In 2025, the sector grew by 7% on the again of investments over the previous few years, with 10% progress projected this 12 months. Additional, mineral export income is estimated to have elevated from $5.9-billion in 2024 to $6.2-billion in 2025, with projections indicating eventual progress to $21-billion if ongoing initiatives are efficiently accomplished.
Mugano’s optimism is strengthened by the truth that, whereas coverage inconsistency and instability constrained Zimbabwe’s enterprise atmosphere between 2000 and 2017, current reforms have been a key issue behind the mining sector’s resurgence. They embrace a discount in licence processing occasions from 21 days to solely seven days, which he says has improved investor confidence, as indicated by the surge in mining-sector funding.
Nonetheless, he hastens so as to add that royalty will increase, overseas foreign money retention insurance policies, and an absence of readability on black empowerment guidelines proceed to concern overseas traders.
Like Perks, he additionally flags vitality and infrastructure deficits as potential impediments to continued overseas mining funding circulation.
“Findings from the State of the Mining Sector Survey present that electrical energy demand elevated by roughly 20% in 2024 resulting from enlargement initiatives, and in the identical 12 months diesel consumption rose by 35%, reflecting efforts to compensate for unreliable grid energy.
“Most mining executives anticipate energy shortages to worsen as new initiatives come on-line. With out dependable electrical energy, beneficiation, smelting and processing initiatives can’t function effectively.
“As well as, as a result of absence of a well-functioning railway system, transport infrastructure stays a big bottleneck, rising manufacturing prices and lowering competitiveness.
“Additional, whereas Zimbabwe retains a comparatively sturdy mining expertise base, future enlargement in lithium processing, metallurgy and superior mining applied sciences would require extra technical experience.”
Industrial Promise
In a thumbs up for the Zimbabwean authorities’s push for in-country mineral beneficiation, Mugano says shifting downstream might see the mining sector develop into the cornerstone of Zimbabwe’s industrialisation technique. He believes that the strongest alternatives are in lithium processing, platinum refining, ferrochrome manufacturing, gold refining and jewelry manufacturing.
Additional enhancing mining’s potential contribution to industrialisation, based on Mugano, is the Zimbabwean authorities’s promotion of the Mines-to-Vitality Park, which incorporates two 300 MW energy stations, a lithium salt plant producing 130 000 t/y, graphite processing amenities, a nickel sulphide manufacturing facility and an alloy smelting facility.
“Nations reminiscent of Botswana, Australia, Chile, and Indonesia present helpful examples of how mineral wealth can assist industrialisation by way of beneficiation, native provider improvement and infrastructure funding,” says Mugano.
Requested what he would single out because the elements to look at most carefully if he have been advising a world mining investor contemplating Zimbabwe, he stated: “With over 60 minerals, together with treasured minerals, base metals and rare-earth minerals, Zimbabwe gives considered one of Africa’s most compelling mining alternatives on the earth.
“According to the federal government coverage on mineral beneficiation throughout all classes of minerals, traders ought to watch developments, however should place emphasis on the decision by the federal government of Zimbabwe on the necessity to set up processing amenities in iron and metal, gold, lithium and platinum group metals, in addition to Mines-to-Vitality initiatives.”
Even when mining overseas direct funding continues to pour into Zimbabwe, Mugano argues that the last word measure of success would be the sector’s contribution to broad-based financial improvement. For him, a profitable mining sector is one which will increase mineral export income to greater than $21-billion a 12 months, creates 100 000 mining jobs and plenty of extra in linked manufacturing and repair sectors over the subsequent 5 years, contributes extra to GDP than the present 12% to 14.5%, has a stronger fiscal income contribution and raises native procurement past the present 15%.
“Success would additionally imply mining turns into the inspiration of industrialisation quite than merely an export sector. A disappointing consequence can be one the place Zimbabwe continues exporting primarily uncooked minerals, whereas importing higher-value manufactured merchandise.”
