Mining & Trade News

The Malawi Government has signed a charter securing membership in the Africa Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG) as one way of facilitating international cooperation in the minerals and mining sector among member African nations.

AMSG is an African body which promotes exploration, extraction, production, local beneficiation (value addition) and commercialization to ensure a sustainable, transparent and secure supply of critical minerals, while protecting the environment and improving the quality of life of the population, to spur the socio-economic transformation and prosperity of Africa, and support the energy transition.

Speaking at the signing ceremony in Lilongwe, Minister of Mining Monica Chang’anamuno commended the move saying it will spearhead the mission to safeguard African minerals including Malawi’s.

Chang’anamuno said the development will, among others, help in job creation and in local beneficiation as raw materials will be processed within Africa. 

She said: “We have today signed this charter to officially become members of the group in order to safeguard minerals of Africa.”

“For long time, we have been doing this as individual countries so others have taken advantage of that but this time, we have said no let us come together.”

“This will also help to create jobs for ourselves unlike in the past where people were taking our raw materials to utilize in creating job opportunities in their countries.”

“For instance, if we have a refinery for specific minerals in Malawi, other countries will be able to use that refinery. Likewise, Malawi will also be using refineries for other minerals that cannot be refined here in another African country, maybe in Tanzania.”

Malawi has joined the bandwagon of 16 AMSG founding member nations including Nigeria, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Botswana, Burundi, South Sudan, Zambia, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Chad, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Liberia.

In his remarks, Secretary General for AMSG Moses Micheal Engadu hailed the move by Malawi Government saying it has joined at an opportune time when the country has started developing its mineral sector.

Engadu said the country has vast unexploited key minerals that the Group is interested to protect and ensure that they benefit and improve African communities. 

He said: “What we signed today was a charter for the establishment of Africa Minerals Strategy Group. This is the intergovernmental coding established to facilitate international cooperation in the minerals and mining sector among African countries and also work with interested nations and strategic partners to explore opportunities to grow our mining sector.

“Our role is to promote local beneficiation and also to get fair deals for Africa for minerals. As you know we have vast mineral wealth across the continent but for the past years we have not benefited from these minerals as continent.”

“So our duty is to become a voice for the African continent and be able to negotiate better deals and also foster collaboration among our countries as some countries have experiences in mining and we want to bring those experiences to countries like Malawi which is just starting mining.”

Endagu further explained that currently, there is scramble for minerals used to produce electromagnets and Malawi has a number of those minerals yet to be exploited hence the need to join hands.

AMSG objectives centers on collaboration, resource sharing, investment opportunities, technological advancement, capacity building and, strategic partnership.  

In January this year, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became AMSG founding partner promising to invest in the African mineral assets through their newly launched $15-billion Manara Minerals Fund which is targeting four commodities namely copper, lithium, iron ore and nickel.

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