Mining countries and mineral specialization

Africa's mineral specialization is in fact based on very few countries: Liberia and Mauritania for iron ore; Zambia and Zaire for copper; Namibia, Niger and Gabon for uranium; Guinea for bauxite; and, of course, South Africa. The distribution of production for the four main minerals on the continent are illustrated in Tables 1.5 to 1.8.

Table 1.5 Iron ore, 1984 (m tons)

Source: Metal Bulletin, UNCTAD, and Annales des Mines.

*Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Swaziland and Zimbabwe are much less significant producers.

Among the small producers, Botswana's output has considerably increased since 1974, while Mauritania has reduced production. Uganda, Mozambique, Algeria and Morocco are marginal producers.

Table 1.6 Copper (blister), 1983 ('000 tons)

Source: Metal Bulletin, UNCTAD, and Annales des Mines.

Table 1.7 Bauxite, 1983 ('000 tons)

Source: Metal Bulletin. UNCTAD, and Annales des Mines.

These three countries account for approximately the total African output, but Ghana's production has decreased since the early 1980s.

Table 1.8 Uranium, 1983 (tonnes)

Source: Annuaire MINEMET, IMETAL group.

There are some reserves elsewhere on the continent, but at present these four countries are the only producers.

Thus Africa's mineral specialization rests upon a handful of countries, as is the case for such other primary products, as cotton, coffee, cocoa or oil. Also, Africa's position on the world market is better in respect of those minerals with the highest concentration inside the continent: bauxite, copper and uranium. The figures for the relative shares of the main producing countries in the world exports for these minerals are impressive: for copper, Zambia and Zaire represent approximately 13% and 10% of world exports; for bauxite, Guinea alone accounts for 25% of world exports; and for uranium, the corresponding figures are 25% for South Africa, 16% each for Namibia and for Niger. But for iron ore, which is much less concentrated on the continent, the relative share of Liberia, which is the biggest African exporter, is only 6%.

Apart from South Africa, all these countries are much more heavily dependent on mining activity than any others elsewhere in the Third World. In most cases, mineral specialization is what may be termed a mono-export situation: copper, for example represents 91% of Zambia's exports; iron ore 86.5% of Mauritania's exports; and bauxite 87% for Guinea. In these countries the export revenue resulting from mining has provided a consistent 15% of the gross domestic product (GDP) during the past decades. In these countries all aspects of economic and social life are clearly dependent on mining. During the 1970s the mining sector's share in the GDP declined, except in Namibia, but this reflects the impact of the world crisis rather than a diversification of economic activities. In only two African oil countries, Gabon and Libya, can a similar specialization in the extraction of raw materials be observed.

The heavy dependence of developed economies on African mineral resources is, then, matched by an intense mining specialization in a few African countries, especially for iron ore, copper, bauxite and uranium. The dependence of Western countries and Japan on African mineral resources can, in fact, be observed consistently during the last 30 years. Free access to Africa's metals, on the basis of land expropriation and cheap labour, have undoubtedly been one of the main factors behind the remarkable economic growth of advanced capitalist countries since the Second World War. Without the availability of the Third World's mineral resources, and Africa's in particular, the increased productivity and improved living standards which have marked the post-war period could not have been achieved. The specialization of some African countries in copper, iron and bauxite has, therefore, been a vital element in the metal-consuming growth pattern of Western countries over the past three decades. Other African countries' specialization in uranium production is a consequence of the policies of diversification of energy sources pursued by the industrial powers during the late 1970s and the early 1980s. The West's and Japan's dependence on the continued availability of African metals is, however, less potentially disruptive than their dependence on OPEC producers for oil - at least up to the mid-1980s. In most cases control of ore production, the mines' rent, and mineral processing are not in the hands of African states, and even less of their peoples.

Because of the industrial powers' strategies, Africa's mineral output is concentrated in 1) South Africa and Namibia; and 2) in a few countries heavily dependent on mining and weak in demographic and economic terms. Significantly, outside South Africa and Namibia the most intensive and promising specializations, such as in bauxite and uranium, are concentrated in a handful of small, weak countries such as Guinea, Niger and Gabon. If the possibility of disruption arising out of the dependence of industrial consuming economies on Africa's metals is only potential, this is because those countries involved in intensive mining are almost totally under the West's control.