Russian miner ALROSA has said that it would finalise its plans to carry out diamond mining in Zimbabwe over the next six months after reviewing the extent of the diamond reserves, , according to reports in the local media. The Company also said that it would proceed only if it gets management and operational control of any joint venture projects it may undertake with local partners.

The reports quote an interview given by ALROSA CEO Sergey Ivanov to news agency Reuters, where he said, "Of course we'll only be ready to participate in projects in cases where we can have management control and operational control of the assets."

Ivanov also expressed the confidence that this would be agreed upon once the partners get into more detailed discussions on how to advance a project.

He also told Reuters that a similar deal to expand operations in Angola could be finalised “in the near future” as the partners had already finalised details related to corporate governance and transparency and has also set up an advisory board.

It may be recalled that in January this year, soon after the state visit of Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa to Russia, ALROSA had announced that it had would be expanding its operations to Zimbabwe and had already registered a new company, ALROSA (Zimbabwe) Ltd in Harare for this purpose.

While the Mnangagwa government has announced liberalisation of the tight controls over the mining sector that the previous government had put in place, current regulations still mandate that overseas companies operating in the diamond and platinum mining sectors could only hold a maximum of 49% stake in any JV.

Recently, Zimbabwe’s finance minister and other senior officials have indicated that the government would soon do away with this requirement, but there has been no official pronouncement as yet.

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