Mineral value addition: Namibia maintains hard-line stance in EU talks

Namibia yesterday maintained its hard-line stance on non-exportation of its key minerals in raw form, during European Union-Namibia business forum talks in Brussels, Belgium.

Addressing the forum, President Hage Geingob reiterated a position adopted by Cabinet in June this year, saying “we are no longer going to export raw minerals”.

“Namibia's economy is intricately linked to the extraction and processing of minerals for export, contributing significantly to our gross domestic product [GDP] and foreign exchange earnings. Together with our partners from Europe, we are dedicated to improving the sustainability of our extractive industry and developing local processing, refining, recovery and recycling capacity in Namibia,” he added.

This approach, Geingob said, has the potential to underpin sustainable, clean and inclusive economic growth, while fostering domestic resource mobilisation, economic diversification and deeper linkages to the broader economy.

Resource nationalism

Speaking at the same occasion, mines minister Tom Alweendo said Namibia will do all it can for value addition of rare minerals to be done in-country, in order to ensure developmental goals are met.

He said Namibia can only grow her economy by ensuring it beneficiates its minerals locally, amid suggestions that countries were on the path towards resource nationalisation.

“The jobs we need to create, the fact that we need to double our GDP, it cannot happen if we export raw minerals that are not value-added in the country,” Alweendo said during a panel discussion held in Brussels.

“When we talk about value addition, it’s got nothing to do with resource nationalism; it’s got everything to do with building our economy, building the lives of Namibian people, and we can only do that if we agree that it is what we need to do."

Alweendo stressed that Namibia and the EU would have to work towards creating a win-win relationship to meaningfully benefit from trading with each other.

“We are building an economy and therefore, the critical raw minerals will have to be value-added in-country, and that is something that we need to stress.”

Green hydrogen

Work was also in progress to ensure investment in the green hydrogen space takes place as expected, Alweendo said.

“The road map has been agreed to; we are now following some concrete actions that we have agreed to with the EU. The essence of the road map, and all the policy frameworks that are in place and where we are getting to now, is that is that we need to make sure the investment takes place and production is there,” he said.

Cabinet in June took a decision to prohibit the export of certain critical minerals such as unprocessed crushed lithium ore, cobalt, manganese, graphite and rare earth minerals.

Only small quantities of the specified minerals would be allowed, after approval by the mines minister, government said.

Namibia is one of the top global producers of uranium and gem-quality diamonds, but its battery metals like lithium are attracting growing interest as the world moves away from polluting fuels to renewable energy.

Last year, Namibia signed an agreement to supply rare earth minerals to the EU under the bloc's plan to reduce its reliance on China for critical minerals, Reuters reported.