subject: The Most Important Mining Country In This World [print this page] South Africa is one of the world"s and Africa"s most important mining countries in terms of the variety and quantity of minerals produced. It has the world"s largest reserves of chrome, gold, vanadium, manganese and PGM"s. South Africa is the leading producer for nearly all of Africa"s metals and minerals production apart from diamonds (Botswana and the DRC), uranium (Niger), copper and cobalt (Zambia and the DRC) and phosphates (Morocco).The country"s mineral industry can be broken down into five broad categories - Gold, PGM, Diamonds, Coal and Vanadium. Combined, these produced a sales revenue (2000) of ZAR51.6 billion (approx. US$ 7.4 billion), representing 6.5% of the country"s GDP. PGM sales exceeded those of gold for the first time in 2000 - based on the surge in PGM prices as well as efforts to boost PGM production from South Africa in the light of erratic supplies from Russia. Sales of primary mineral products accounted for nearly 35% of South Africas total export revenue during 2000, with gold"s contribution decreasing further to 12,4 %. As a result of an increase in secondary and tertiary industries as well as a continuing decline in gold production, mining"s contribution to South Africa"s GDP has declined over the past 10 years (in 1991, mining"s contribution to GDP was 8.4%) . However, this may be offset by an increase in the downstream or beneficiated minerals industry, identified by the Government as a growth sector in South Africa.It is estimated that South Africa holds 80% of the world"s known manganese reserves as well as 72% of the world"s known chromite ore reserves. In 2005 South Africa was found to be the ninth-largest producer of aluminium, the largest producer of alumino-silicates, chrome ore and ferro-chromium. South Africa was also found to be the second-largest producer of manganese ore and the ninth-largest producer of nickel in the same year.Migrant labour still plays an integral role in the South African mining industry, with labour being sourced from Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana and Zimbabwe. However, due to low gold prices and the marginal nature of many of South Africa"s gold mines, the resultant restructuring and cost saving exercises has resulted in several thousand workers losing their jobs. Fluctuations in the local currency against the US dollar have buffered these effects to a certain extentAs the professional manufacturer of complete sets of mining machinery, such as symons cone crusher,symons cone crusher,Hydraulic cone crusher, Henan Hongxing is always doing the best in products and service.Artificial sand maker:http://www.hxjq-crusher.com/58.html Mobile crushing station:http://www.crusher-machine.com/n27.html
