Published: 28 October 2013

Government is determining how to structure the sale of the country's first international bond and is seeking advisers as it aims to raise financing to fund mining development, Mines and Mining Development Walter Chidakwa has said.

Minister Chidakwa said he will meet with Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa to discuss the plan ahead of the release of the country's budget, scheduled for next month.

"We haven't worked out how much we are going to raise and who is actually going to work in putting together the bond," he said yesterday at Mimosa platinum mine near Zvishavane.

The minister told an industrial conference in Bulawayo, the country's second-biggest city, that the government was considering a bond sale to create a fund to finance mining.

The platinum industry needs as much as $5.3 billion if it is to expand to produce more than 500,000 ounces of the metal and to construct precious and base metal refineries, the Platinum Produces Committee said in a report this month.

Production is forecast at 365 000 ounces this year, according to the group, which represents Impala, Anglo American Platinum and Aquarius. Minister Chidakwa declined to comment further on the planned bond.


- Bloomberg

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