The eighth consultative meeting of the Arab Ministers of Mining and Mineral Resources, held in Riyadh, unanimously agreed to a proposal by Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El-Molla to prepare a joint Arab initiative for clean energy.
The initiative will include all Arab countries and will be presented at the United Nations’ Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP27), which will be hosted in Sharm El-Sheikh this year.
The participants recommended assigning a working team from the Arab Industrial Development and Mining Organisation to prepare for the initiative. The meeting also agreed to launch the first Arab digital platform for requests and offers for industrial and mining products and to prepare a mining indicative system for Arab countries.
Also in attendance in the meeting were Bandar Al-Khorayef, the Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources of Saudi Arabia; Suhail Al-Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure of the United Arab Emirates; and Adel Al-Sager, the Director of the Arab Organisation for Industrial Development, Standardisation, and Mining.
The meeting was held on the sidelines of the International Mining Conference hosted in Riyadh with the participation of more than 100 countries.
In his speech, El-Molla stressed that Egypt is implementing an ambitious programme to develop its mining industry based on Egypt’s 2030 Vision — which considers the optimal exploitation of natural resources as one of its most important goals — explaining that the programme developed by his ministry succeeded in implementing comprehensive reforms to advance the Egyptian mining system after studying all local and international challenges.
This is because there are tremendous opportunities to benefit from Egypt’s strategic location and the rich geological nature of Egypt as part of the Arab-Nubian Shield, which requires real investment attractions to be achieved by adjusting the legislative system and introducing contracting systems similar to international mining markets as well as digital transformation and key principles for serious investment such as the financial system, licensing system, and sector governance.
Furthermore, El-Molla reviewed the most prominent measures that have been applied to develop the Egyptian mining sector, foremost of which is the amendment of the mining law to reflect the new legislative reforms and available opportunities and to provide transparency and flexibility in a manner that addresses many obstacles to attracting the necessary investments.
He stressed that the mining sector in Egypt is reaping the fruits of the reforms implemented, pointing to the success of the first global bid — which was launched in 2020 — in attracting unprecedented global and local participation in the field of gold mining in the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea, despite the global challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. He also pointed out that these positive results encouraged a second auction for gold.
Additionally, he announced that work is underway to implement the first approved gold refinery in Egypt in Marsa Alam in the Eastern Desert to maximise the added value of gold resources and to complete the value chain for gold production by maximising local production.
He explained that the vision of developing the mining sector aims to increase its contribution to the GDP from about half a percent currently to 5% during the next two decades, provide a large number of job opportunities, and maximise mining activities by issuing more than two hundred research and exploration licenses annually.
The minister also stressed the importance of the mining industry in serving vital goals, as the modern industry will not be able to achieve its goals in removing carbon without the mineral products that are part of its composition.
