The plans remain alive and will kick off once the outstanding regulatory issues have been promulgated and taken into account.

Realistically no investor will release significantly large sums of money for projects in Zimbabwe before knowing the rules and regulations governing the industry.

It is important to record that the Minister made it clear that the brief we got was a position taken by government at that stage of the process and we would like to believe that as we progress with the process and further input is received by the authorities, the substance of the current position as briefed may be amended to take into account the additional inputs.

The mining companies in Zimbabwe are not large enough to expand production facilities or finance green-field projects from their cash-flows.

With more than two million operators out there, surface gold is fast running out.

I guarantee you it will not be anyone from the outside.