Zimbabwean Platinum Miners Plead to Scrap Levies

HARARE (Scrap Monster): Platinum Producers Association of Zimbabwe has requested the government to remove the heavy duties imposed on them and said that that would lead to the collapse of the industry if it is left unchanged.

Chairman Herbert Mashanyare said that when there were 0.875 MMCZ levies, the 10 percent royalty levy and 15 percent raw platinum export levy over and above that, there would have no industry.

And then he added that the recently imposed 15 percent levy on raw platinum export could lead to the complete collapse of platinum mining sector in Zimbabwe if it was kept unchanged. There are three platinum mining companies in Zimbabwe which are operating in different places in the country. In total, they produce about 400,000 ounces of platinum annually.

The Southern African country is the third largest platinum producer in the world after South Africa and Russia, and has the second largest known deposits of platinum in the world.

In March 2011, the government of Zimbabwe also implemented laws which required local ownership of mining companies and after this news there were falls in the share prices of companies with the mines there.