Client or partnering organisation: Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA) and Bureau for Economic Research (BER).
Overview and impact:
This research has contributed to a shift in the narrative surrounding South Africa’s mining sector, moving the conversation from a “sunset” industry toward its potential as a “sunrise” sector. Released to coincide with the 2026 Mining Indaba, the study’s findings and recommendations have been supported and amplified by major industry bodies, further cementing its role in the national economic discourse. By demonstrating that the industry’s stagnation is largely driven by human-made constraints rather than geological exhaustion, this work provides a key reference for policymakers and leaders working to address logistical and regulatory bottlenecks.
Applying the Growth Diagnostics framework, the paper investigates the binding constraints that have prevented the sector from capitalizing on global commodity booms and the green energy transition. South Africa’s mining sector presents a significant economic paradox: despite possessing a mineral endowment of global significance—particularly in platinum group metals (PGMs), manganese, and chromium—the industry has experienced a profound structural decline since the 1970s. This study argues that the sector’s decline is primarily endogenous, offering an evidence-based roadmap for reform to ensure the nation’s mineral wealth drives future economic growth.
Download Reports/Products:
Understanding South Africa’s mining slowdown
Turning SA’s sunset mining sector into a sunrise industry
Selected Print and Online Media Coverage of the project:
Bloomberg: South Africa Mining Exploration Falls for Seventh Year
Featured in Bloomberg’s coverage of the continued decline in South Africa’s mineral exploration. Highlighting our assessment about the effective collapse of the sector’s project pipeline, the article points to our report and proposed policy solutions—including targeted tax rebates (flow through shares), a transparent mining rights database (cadastral system), and increased funding for geological mapping—as essential steps to revitalise the industry’s prospecting efforts.
Business Day: Research paper blames poor policy for mining exploration crisis
Business Day recently covered the report, highlighting our warning that poor policy and a “one-size-fits-all” regulatory approach are driving a “failure-to-launch crisis” in South African mining exploration. The article underscores our core argument: to unlock the country’s vast untapped mineral wealth, policymakers must ease the prohibitive compliance costs strangling junior miners and rethink current legislative drafts to account for their unique, high-risk business models.
Daily Investor: One thing the government can do to save South Africa’s most important sector
Daily Investor highlighted the report, focusing on how South Africa’s mining industry can transition from a perceived “sunset” industry back to a “sunrise” sector. The article underscores our core finding: the sector’s stagnation is driven by policy, regulatory, and bureaucratic obstacles, not geological exhaustion. By moving away from adversarial legislating and reducing policy uncertainty, we argue that the South African government can unlock the country’s vast mineral wealth and spur much faster economic growth.
IOL- Business Report: The decline of South Africa’s mining sector: Challenges and opportunities
IOL Business Report covered the report, challenging the narrative that South African mining is a “sunset sector.” The article highlights our findings that the industry’s long-term stagnation—including the “Missed Super-Cycle” of the early 2000s—is the result of domestic policy transitions and a crisis of confidence, rather than geological exhaustion. Emphasising the sector’s continued role as an economic cornerstone, the coverage underscores our argument that restoring a functional ecosystem between large-cap majors and junior explorers is critical to unlocking the country’s vast, untapped mineral wealth.
Daily Investor: The crime turning a South African township into a warzone
Daily Investor covered the report, highlighting the staggering 757% growth of illicit mining in South Africa. The article underscores our analysis of how the lack of a transparent cadastral system has enabled systemic extortion and organised crime, sharply driving down the risk-adjusted return on legal investment. To restore the rule of law across the mineral complex, the piece highlights core recommendations: formalising Operation Vala Umgodi into a permanent Mining Police Task Force and establishing a Judicial Commission of Inquiry.
Opinion Piece in the Business Day: How to turn SA’s sunset mining sector into a sunrise industry
Opinion piece for Business Day, co-authored with Claire Bisseker, we unpack the research report, and the critical interventions needed to transform South Africa’s mining industry from a perceived “sunset” sector back into a vibrant “sunrise” economic engine. The article outlines our core argument: by clearing regulatory bottlenecks and actively empowering junior minors/exploration, the government can unlock the country’s immense latent mineral wealth and revitalize the project pipeline.
Daily Investor: South Africa’s golden lie
In a feature titled “South Africa’s Golden Lie,” Daily Investor examines our research on the “growth illusion” currently masking a deepening productivity crisis in South Africa’s mining sector. The article highlights the analysis of the “Capital Productivity Paradox,” where rising investment fails to yield higher output due to internal efficiencies and external constraints. By exposing how high commodity prices have papered over a 11.55% real contraction in the sector since 1994, the piece underscores the urgent need for structural reform to move beyond the industry’s decades-long stagnation.
