S Africa woos Indian mining units

Coal & metals offer opportunities for new business

Southern African Customs Union (SACU) has decided to pursue free trade agreement (FTA) with India to enhance relations between the two countries, informed Paul Jourdan, president and chief executive officer (CEO)"" Mintek during the India Mining Summit at the International Mining and Machinery Exhibition 2004 (IMME 2004).

The director-general of the department of mineral and energy, Republic of South Africa (SA), S Nogxina, would be meeting C D Arha, secretary of the Indian department of mines, for setting up a task team that would explore all possible collaborative work between the two countries, he said.

"This is the high time we should see more trade and exchange between South-South countries when we both have adequate resource, technology and opportunity", said Jourdan.

"The two countries have a lot of similarity in mining sector. Both of us have advantages and disadvantages and we can complement each other in major ways", he added.

A coalfield project at Motteno, small scale mining project at Mapumalanga, metallurgical complex at Maputo, pig iron project at Lambesi were among few major projects where Indian participation were being welcomed by SA government, he said.

SA has cheap electricity and world class technology in mining whereas India has skills in small scale mining and information technology (IT) skills leading to a huge opportunity of exchange benefiting both the countries immensely, added Jourdan.

There has been a number of big Indian names who were exploring opportunity to operate in SA like the TATA, ESSAR and several others, he informed.

Apart from hard core mining operations , SA also welcomed collaborative works in research and development (R&D).

"Research institute like Mintek has already provided technical guidance to several Indian private companies but now there is an urgent need to have joint work in R&D at government level", he added.