EDITOR’S FOREWORD

Every year is a critical year for South Africa’s mining sector. 2023 is no exception. One wish is for the industry to get the policy certainty it deserves and a new mining cadastre as demonstration of the government’s good intentions. Promised by government three years ago, a transparent, easy-touse means of awarding mining permits will achieve enormous benefit for the sector at a time when the search for minerals globally intensifies. Commodity cycles haven’t stopped, but there’s a secular upswing in mining that presents Africa a quite enormous opportunity to enrich lives, as I hope these pages demonstrate. There’s business to do done. Let’s hope South Africa can begin to participate more fully.