By:Nghiinomenwa-vali Erastus
In first six months of 2023, the country’s extractive industry has managed to excavate 1.2 million carats of diamonds, and 45,541 tonnes of gold, uranium, and zinc.
This is according to the mining sectoral reportproduced by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), and aggregated by The Villager Business Desk.
Namibia has around 26 mines, extracting inland and a diamond operation in the ocean.
One of the most extracted resources is the diamond. On average for the past six months, the country has extracted 195,937.67 carats of diamond.
Of the extracted diamonds, 15% went to Namdia, while the existing diamond polishing companies buy up some of the raw materials to polish in the country.
Diamond is a very hard mineral that is in the form of bars of carbon and is used, especially in Jewellery.
In June 2023, Namibia exported N$2,4 billion worth of the precious stones, polished and unpolished.
As for gold, for the six months, the country has extracted 3,916 kilogrammes of the valuable commodity, with a monthly average of 652.67 kilogrammes being mined.
Namibia gold (non-monetary) is exported to South Africa. For June 2023, those mining the gold pocketed N$803 million.
For the blue-white colour metal, zinc, the country’s miners have extracted 38,276 tonnes.
On a monthly average, the miners managed to excavate 605.2 tonnes of zinc metal.
Zinc, a metallic element, is used as a protective covering for iron and to make metal alloys like nickel and silver.
A total of 3,631 tonnes of uranium was extracted , which is mainly shipped to China, Canada, and France.
Uranium is used for nuclear energy purpose enrichment and other purposes, with countries like France heavily reliant on nuclear energy.
Uranium is a silver-heavy radioactive polyvalent metallic element that is found especially in uraninite and exists naturally as a mixture of mostly no fissionable elements.
The recently released quarterly national accounts data indicate that the Namibian economy grew by 5.0% during the first quarter of 2023, higher than the 2.1% in the final quarter of 2022.
Similarly, year-to-date, the Namibian economy continued with its positive momentum as reflected in increased activity mostly in the mining industry, complemented by the livestock marketing, wholesale and retail trade, communication, and tourism sectors.
The Bank of Namibia in its latest forecast has attributed its upward economic growth revision mainly due to continued momentum in the uranium, diamond, and retail sectors, as well as a slightly more positive outlook on construction. Email: erastus@thevillager.com.na