Johannesburg - Africa is a key that can unlock the constraints of the current global downturn, Anglo American SA said on Tuesday.
"We are optimists when it comes to ongoing investment in Africa," said Kuseni Dlamini, head of Anglo American SA, in an address to the mining indaba in Cape Town.
"I think it is fair to say that not only has Anglo American operated in Africa longer than most of our peers... We have also been less risk-averse in regard to the continent," he said. Dlamini said that even in the present challenging economic climate, Africa was expected to grow at a rate well in excess of the world average.
"It is also now in a better position to withstand the current turbulent economic conditions, partly because of improved macro-economic management," he said.
Restoring stability and confidence in the mining sector would be a factor of the greatest importance.
"Within our industry, even though we are inured to its highly cyclical, volatile nature, there has seldom been such an immense fall in the traded prices of extractive commodities or such a fluctuation in stock prices, with funds and institutions scrambling to wind down their positions," Dlamini said.
The current phase of the cycle was all about scaling back, mothballing or even shutting operations; deferring future projects; and preserving capital and credit lines.
"But we must not lose sight of the new mining opportunities that are always out there and of the need for the capital investment that is so vital for our businesses."
Dlamini said he sincerely hoped that the actions being taken by governments across the globe to "restart and reform" the financial markets would begin to take effect over the course of 2009 and beyond "but as we all know, positive sentiment is perhaps the most difficult factor to restore within financial markets".
Highlighting the importance of the mining industry - tangible assets mattered most, he said.
The financial services sector and the natural-resource industry had both been hit hard by the global economic downturn.
"But for me the fact that our business deals with tangible assets - whether in the form of platinum, coal, iron ore, copper, gold or diamonds - matters significantly," Dlamini said.
"Put simply, we are in the business of producing real things for the real economy."
- Sapa