JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Foreign investors in South Africa typically encounter fewer ownership restrictions than in many resource-rich jurisdictions, multinational corporate law firm Baker McKenzie states in its 192-page report covering 20 countries.

Highlighted is that South Africa’s policy environment is increasingly supportive of private-sector participation.

Pointed out, too, is that South Africa’s objective is not simply to attract capital into projects, but to ensure that investment contributes to domestic manufacturing, employment and supply-chain development.

The report acknowledges South Africa as a major producer of platinum group metals, manganese, chrome and vanadium, with its critical-minerals policy reflecting a broader effort to capture greater value from its resource base rather than remaining a supplier of raw materials alone.

“Government’s focus increasingly centres on improving the economics of downstream investment, supporting exploration, strengthening industrial infrastructure and encouraging greater value addition within South Africa and the broader Southern African region,” Johannesburg-based Baker McKenzie partners Ryan Alho and Lydia Shadrach-Razzino state in the seven pages on South Africa, whose approach to decarbonisation is seen as being “generally pragmatic”.

“South Africa views itself as a potential regional processing and manufacturing hub capable of leveraging mineral resources across the broader Southern African region.

“In practice, however, the success of these ambitions will depend on competitiveness. Reliable electricity supply, efficient logistics infrastructure, affordable industrial power and a stable regulatory environment will ultimately determine whether downstream processing investments are commercially viable.

“South Africa remains one of the deepest and most sophisticated energy and infrastructure markets on the continent. Demand for new generation, storage, transmission, logistics and water infrastructure remains substantial, and the policy environment is increasingly supportive of private-sector participation. The opportunity is therefore relatively clear. The principal challenge is execution.

“The pace at which transmission networks are expanded, electricity markets are liberalised and ageing infrastructure is renewed will ultimately determine whether projected investment opportunities are translated into realised returns,” Alho and Shadrach-Razzino conclude in the document released to Mining Weekly.

On Angola, the only other African country to be given exposure, the Baker McKenzie document reports that Anglo’s regulatory reforms focus on removing practical barriers to investment and creating clearer routes for private-sector participation.

Angola’s mining policy is described as being geared towards turning resources such as copper, cobalt, lithium, rare earths, niobium, manganese, phosphates, iron and gold into commercial production rather than holding them as strategic reserves.

“The approach is already visible in offtake arrangements, with the first year of Tetelo copper production contracted to Glencore. Alongside this upstream push, Angola is promoting domestic processing, including diamond polishing, steel production and the use of phosphates and dolomitic limestone in agriculture,” Miranda Alliance partners João Leite, Lília Tomé de Azevedo and Renato Guerra de Almeida report.

Policy frameworks across all major global jurisdictions are said to be changing rapidly, with strongest opportunities arising not where a single incentive is generous, but where multiple policy objectives — such as energy security, industrial development, critical minerals and decarbonisation — reinforce one another, creating durable and overlapping support for the same project or sector.