The 2016 Fraser Institute survey had far worse news for South...

The 2016 Fraser Institute survey had far worse news for South Africa.
The result in 2015 was bad enough: it came in at place 68 (between Nicaragua and Romania, so that’ll give you some idea of its standing among the mining crowd).
But this latest ranking is worse. South Africa is now down to No. 76 (between Kazakhstan and Bulgaria – and only six places above South Sudan, for heaven’s sake).
This all coincided with coming across an online commentary from South Africa concerning the plight of the mining industry. Perhaps we have been influenced in our perceptions of the country by the decline of South Africa’s gold mining sector, which has surely been dramatic, but may not having been paying too much attention to overall scene there.
And that is backed up the decline of South African plays for investors. In 1980 South African stocks, we are informed, constituted 47% of mining equity values around the world. In 2000 that was down to 18% and now, in 2017, those plays represent just 4.4%.
Yet an examination by one analyst firm in the country put South Africa’s remaining mineral wealth at an estimated $US4.7 trillion (with 49% of that representing the platinum group metals still under the surface of that part of the Earth).
But the article did point another way on which South African mining is hobbled: three companies control 75% the known gold reserves, one company 45% of iron ore reserves and one company 55% of the PGM inventory. (Pity they never developed a thriving junior sector.)
The post makes reference to a report issued two months ago by a South African consultancy, Datta Burton. That laid out the extent of the investment strike that confronts the South African industry: in 2016, capital spending was estimated to be about half of that outlaid in 2008. “This in stark contrast to (the period) 2005-08 when it more than doubled,” the report goes on.
It blames the latest version of the Mining and Petroleum Development Act (MPDA) and the new mining charter that have created “uncertainty and hostility”. The analysts describe the amendments to the MPDA as “almost dictatorial”; these give the minister powerful decision rights, including setting pricing and imposing export permits, the end result being “a frightful investment setting”.
Capital productivity in the mining sector has apparently declined by 43% since 2005. The move to automation has been slow and inconsistent. “Miners seem to be fixing spades instead of buying a digger,” the report comments.

How long before the Dragon gives up on this lost cause?
A reportedly brilliant resource with muck for brains management who have totally stuffed the opportunity. Salutary lesson on sovereignty risk.