whats next

The decision to close Perkoa was correct. Two factors have become evident.
Firstly management did not have the complete list of skills to understand the complexity of such a project. They were "feeling" their way as best they could and the shareholders like myself were blindly following them down the mineshaft hoping for a production miracle.

Secondly to find a resource is a lot easier than bringing a mine into production. AIM is not a mining company as such, it is a small resource explorer in one of the most difficult areas to operate in AFRICA.

What now. IMO AIM needs to clearly define what the company is all about. It is not a miner and does not have the capacity to attract the type of funds to complete a project such as Perkoa. Nor does it have the right people. That is not a criticism of those running the company, they just do not have the expertise to operate a new minesite.

What is the core business that AIM represents.

1. It has good connections in Africa.
2.It now has access to some very good territory for exploration around Perkoa ie gold and zinc.
3. It has Mumbwa and Mokopane tenements.
4. It has an understanding of how business is done in this region.

So what of the future. IMO it should continue doing evaluation work on existing tenements, then proceed with drilling where opportunities exist.
In the meantime align themselves with a major mining company and arrange a deal involving use of their expertise and joint funding arrangement. If a substantial find is made on one of AIMs sites, AIM takes a revenue percentage on the mined resource.

AIM continues to build relationships with the African governments and becomes an explorer aligned with the local government and a major miner such as BHP.

If in 2010 the zinc price improves, they then j/v the Perkoa mine. AIM finishes up with a percentage.

There is much to be sorted out in the meantime and in my opinion it will be many years before AIM begins to see any noticealbe increase in its shareprice. The company is way too small to have taken on such a project as Perkoa. It should never have attemped such a monumental task in the first place.

From a marketing viewpiont. AIM is a junior resource exploraton company. Once it finds a resource it should then look for a mining company to do the rest.
It now needs to define itself.