Investment Programme Helps To Secure EU Funds

By Eddyson Lugangwa Posted 18 April 2006 @ 05:19 pm EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

Nairobi (IBTimes.com) - The European Union (EU) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) have launched a joint programme to facilitate EU investor funding for 100 mining projects in the region. This is the third EU-SADC Investment Promotion Programme (ESIPP) for mining. It is launched every six years.

Among the projects presented at the last programme, Mines 2000, was the Langer Heinrich uranium mine in Namibia, which has recently been reopened by Australian miners Paladin.

ESIPP, with an an18m budget, also has programmes running in tourism, construction, light engineering and agro industry. It does not fund individual projects, but identifies suitable ventures and helps to pay for their promoters to prepare a presentation to be delivered to potential investors.

In the mining sector, the programme will seek African, European, North American and Australian investors.

Viv Stuart-Williams, an adviser to ESIPP, said there was no specific deadline for projects to be submitted for this year's round, but he hoped to begin validation by July. A meeting between promoters and EU investors, dubbed Mines 2006, will take place in Lusaka, Zambia, in November.

Stuart-Williams said projects had to be of a minimum size, although he preferred not to put a value on it. They could be at an early stage or more advanced, across a range of commodities, as long as they were likely to interest investors. For example, if a listed company needed to recapitalise one of its operations, it could qualify.

The ESIPP mining programme has already held workshops in Namibia, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lesotho and Swaziland, Mining Weekly Online reported last week. Stuart-Williams said the response was pleasing, with just under 100 people attending, but he hoped to attract more interest in the next few months.

Twelve of the 14 SADC countries will be participating the other two countries do not have mining activities which means about eight projects per country.