Despite recent government commitments to reform, Zimbabwe's mining sector will likely remain crippled by patronage politics, outdated legislation and regulatory gaps, which will continue to constrain the country's economic outlook and restrict the extraction of some of the world's most valuable minerals. Zimbabwe, a small country of about 16 million people in southern Africa, holds some of the largest mineral resources on the continent. Its political leaders, however, have failed to build a flourishing mining industry -- a trend that will likely continue under President Emerson Mnangagwa, despite his new push to boost the sector's profitability. Over the past year, Mnangagwa and the ruling Zimbabwean African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) have introduced new legislation to support the president's goal of increasing mining revenues to $12 billion in 2023 -- a nearly $8 billion increase from 2022. In July, the government announced it would raise royalty rates on platinum producers and...
