South Africa had made significant progress in moving away from the difficulties the country faced a year ago, particularly regarding energy supplies and transport difficulties, highlighted Minerals Council South Africa CEO Mzila Mthenjane in a media briefing on Monday, at the Mining Indaba 2025 conference in Cape Town. While it was still early in the process of improving railway and port operations, “green shoots” were already visible.

“We are also heartened by the enormous structural reforms government has implemented to bring the private sector into the energy sector,” he affirmed. Nevertheless, the mining industry still faced headwinds.

One of these was the issue of water supply. He described water as a “growing crisis”, not just for the mining industry, but for the entire country. He pointed out that, last year, a number of mining projects had been disrupted by a lack of water. Mining companies were helping finance water projects that benefitted both them and their local communities.

The Minerals Council continued to advocate for the adoption of globally competitive mining and minerals legislation. (The industry continued to face regulatory hurdles.)

Another factor was continuing international political tensions, which could affect mineral supply chains and commodity prices. Further, there was the question of how fast the Chinese economy, which was particularly hungry for resources, would actually grow this year. The official target was “around 5%”.

As a result, he urged all stakeholders in South African mining to seize the “window of opportunity” created by the improvements in the country’s situation made last year. This would include deepening reforms, which would increase confidence, investment and growth.

Thus, currently, the South African mining sector did not have a healthy pipeline of exploration projects, but the Council was hopeful that the implementation of the online mining cadastre this year would transform the situation and revive the exploration sector in the country. Mining madastres were working very well in other African countries.

He highlighted that the more the mining sector grew, the more jobs it would create, the more it would stimulate the economy. The Minerals Council calculated that every job created in mining resulted in the creation of ten other jobs, in downstream, service, support, wholesale and retail sectors. And it would also grow income for the fiscus.