Top South African ministers will meet diversified miner Anglo American and diamond arm De Beers on Wednesday to discuss plans to give black business a bigger role in mining, a government source said.
”My understanding is that they will meet at 2 pm (1200 GMT) in Cape Town,” the source told Reuters.
The two mining giants will meet Minerals Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana and Industry Minister Alec Erwin.
Anglo and De Beers officials said they would not comment on the meeting.
Anglo’s announcement of the talks last week was seen as a move to soothe market nerves over a controversial draft charter that has spooked investors.
Details of the charter, which first emerged on July 24, sent mining shares tumbling and wiped out as much as a fifth of Anglo’s value.
Anglo has since clawed back some of its losses and was trading at R129,50 at 0851 GMT on Wednesday, but still way off its year high of R216 hit in February.
South Africa has already approved a Minerals Bill that aims to give blacks a greater role in one of the mainstays of the economy. But the draft charter caused alarm with its targets and deadlines to drastically change the white-dominated industry.
It proposed that control of all new mining projects would have to rest with black business within 10 years.
It also suggested that up to 30% of equity in existing operations must be given to black-owned mining firms before licences to mine an expansion-related project were issued.
The government has distanced itself from the proposals, saying they are not official policy, but rather a starting point for lengthy discussions.
Eight years after the end of white minority rule, the South African economy is still largely in the hands of whites. But government policy aims to give black people a bigger role. – Reuters