Government, business and labour attend Mining Summit to position South Africa’s mining industry for sustainable growth and meaningful transformation
The leadership of South Africa’s mining industry will meet at a Mining Summit on 30 and 31 March 2010. The aim of the Mining Summit is to ensure that government, organised labour and organised business agree on a strategy to position South Africa’s mining industry for sustainable growth and meaningful transformation.
Following the global recession, the leadership of the industry had announced at the beginning of 2010 that the Mining Industry Growth, Development and Employment Task Team (MIGDETT) would embark on a process to ensure that the industry is well-placed to take advantage of the inevitable economic upswing. MIGDETT was established in December 2008 to achieve two critical outcomes, the first of which was to help the industry manage the negative effects of the global economic crisis and to save jobs.
Having succeeded in containing the number of job losses in the mining industry during the economic slump to at least half of the initial estimate of 100 000, MIGDETT has more recently been squarely focused on constructive engagement to devise a strategy to achieve higher growth, the creation of decent jobs and transformation of the industry in the medium to long term, including an examination of the Mining Charter review.
The tripartite leadership of the industry had agreed in January that a prosperous, growing and transformed mining industry was crucial to the socio-economic health of South Africa. In order to realise this important objective, the leadership of the mining industry agreed to develop “a strategy for the sustainable growth and meaningful transformation of South Africa’s mining sector.”
The Mining Summit will, under the leadership of Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu, chart a course for the industry to realise its full potential and agree on a set of steps to be taken by government, business and labour to ensure that South Africa’s mining industry grows and transforms in a sustainable and meaningful way.
The Mining Summit will be closed to the public to ensure robust debate and a media conference to communicate the outcomes of the summit will be held as follows:
Date: 31 March 2010
Time: 12h30 for 13h00
Venue: Drakensberg Sun, KwaZulu-Natal.
Enquiries:
Jeremy Michaels
Cell: 082 772 1122
Tel: 012 679 9192
E-mail: jeremy.michaels@dme.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Mineral Resources
29 March 2010
