Zimbabwe and Chinese investors have signed a deal to build a $2.8 billion battery metals industrial park.
It was also planned to be developed by Hong Kong Eagle International Investment and Pacific Goal Investment, which will be equipped to process metals including platinum, lithium, and nickel; reported Bloomberg News.
The development was aimed at reinvigorating the country’s declining economy.
Slated for completion by the end of 2025, the integrated industrial park will comprise a $1bn nickel-sulfate plant, a $500m nickel-chromium alloy smelter, and a $450m lithium-salt plant.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, while speaking in Harare at the signing ceremony of the deal, said the project would help turn around the decline of Zimbabwe’s economy.
He said, “The mines-to-energy park will augment my government’s thrust of value addition and beneficiation of minerals, as well as bolster the crucial role that minerals’ value chain plays in the national industrialization agenda,” he said. “It is set to mark the inception of a lithium-ion battery chain in Zimbabwe. It is set to place Zimbabwe among the world’s producers of lithium-ion batteries.”
But Zimbabwe’s government plans to provide the land and minerals for the park, while the two Chinese companies investing will bring in machinery and needed funds.
Yet, Mnangagwa has planned for a $12 billion mining industry in Zimbabwe by next year.
