Africa-Press – Angola. The South African multinational linked to mining and diamond trading De Beers, which had been out of the national market since 2012, will resume operations in Angola in the coming days, the company’s CEO, Bruce Cleaver, assured yesterday in Luanda.
The official, who was speaking to the press at the end of the audience with the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, at the Government Palace, in Cidade Alta, highlighted that the multinational is returning to the country “more comfortable” in view of the new business environment created for investors. .”We are very impressed with the reforms undertaken by the Government, led by President João Lourenço, in the last four years, which makes us very comfortable to return to work here,” he stressed.
The South African multinational’s return to the country was marked by the signing, yesterday, on another occasion, of two mining investment contracts with the Ministry of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas, represented by the National Agency for Mineral Resources and Endiama.
The two contracts, with a duration of 35 years, are aimed at prospecting, by De Beers, primary diamond deposits in a territorial area of 9,984 square kilometers in the municipalities of Saurimo, Dala and Muconda, in the province of Lunda-Sul, and another area of 9,701 kilometers, in the municipalities of Chitato, Lucapa and Cambulo, in Lunda-Norte.
Asked by journalists, after the audience with the President of the Republic, about the capital invested in this new partnership, Bruce Cleaver said that it is still early to advance the amount, given the fact that exploration work is currently underway.
“As exploration activity is taking place at that time, it is premature to advance the amount that will be undertaken, but we already have personnel on the ground carrying out the prospecting work”, he stressed.
According to the Minister of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas, Diamantino Azevedo, who spoke the day before the signing of the agreements, the return of De Beers to the country will allow a substantial increase in the exploration and commercialization of national diamonds and the supply of hand -qualified labor.
De Beers’ return to Angola results from the reforms implemented by the Executive in the diamond subsector, which provide greater transparency to the processes for granting mining rights. The two contracts, signed yesterday, resulted from several negotiations between the Angolan institutions and De Beers, since October 2021. In order to create a better business environment in this sector, the Executive, led by João Lourenço, approved a new policy of marketing of rough diamonds, to ensure an effective system and greater transparency in the process of buying and selling diamonds.
The motivation for the elaboration of this policy arose from an orientation of the Holder of the Executive Power, to eliminate the policy that was in force and that was based on preferential customers with the right to buy all the diamond production in the country, a situation that negatively influenced the investment for the diamond prospecting and exploration activity in Angola.
The purpose of the measure is to increase revenue for the State and encourage large mining companies to return to the country and set up diamond cutting factories, thus ensuring that producers have a fair price when selling diamonds.
De Beers is a conglomerate of companies involved in the mining and trade of diamonds. It is active in all categories of the diamond mining industry: in the open, underground on a large scale alluvial, in the deep sea or on slopes. Mining takes place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Canada. The company was founded by Cecil Rhodes and financed by Alfred Beit and Rothschild.
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