Nigeria and South Africa have penned a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will foster a lucrative collaboration in the mining sector.
The partnership, which was recently sealed in Abuja by Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, and South Africa’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, will guarantee lots of investment, idea exchanges, and technology transfer between both nations.
Dele Alake revealed that Nigeria and SA are set to work together on several mining initiatives, including geological mapping via drones, exchange of mineral data, and joint exploration of agro and energy minerals within Nigeria. He maintained that such bilateral cooperation will go a long way in boosting industrialisation, job creation, and adequate economic growth across Africa.
According to him, South Africa‘s established mining expertise makes them the best bet to partner with as Nigeria works rigorously to bring its mining industry back to life. He believes there is no better partner to have than a country with a mining sector that ranks as the fifth largest globally in terms of its contribution to their gross domestic product (GDP).
Despite being home to more than 23 mineral resources in commercial quantities, including gold, limestone, lithium, iron ore, and zinc, Nigeria’s mining sector is still nothing to write home about as it contributes less than one percent to the country’s GDP, unlike South Africa, boasting Africa’s most lucrative economy as of today, with mining playing a major role in their development as a nation.
While SA has continued to shelter some of the most valuable mineral reserves across the globe, including its impressive amount of deposits of platinum group metals (PGMs) and manganese, the Nigerian economy has mostly relied on oil as its main revenue source. However, all that might be about to change since the most populous black nation has finally realised that the right collaborations can deliver the economic diversification the country so badly needs.
