HARARE – The Zimbabwean government has reaffirmed its 2027 deadline for lithium producers to establish beneficiation plants, despite growing calls from industry players for an extension, signalling its continued push towards value addition and local mineral processing.
Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube said the policy stance remains unchanged, with companies that are unable to build their own processing facilities being encouraged to enter tolling agreements with existing beneficiation plants.
According to a report by NewZwire, the government insists that the timeline will not be shifted even as most lithium producers argue that the requirement is financially and technically demanding.
“Zimbabwe will stick to the 2027 deadline for lithium producers to set up beneficiation plants, with those unable to do so encouraged to sign tolling agreements with companies that have the processing capacity,” NewZwire reported, quoting Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube.
The minister’s remarks followed renewed appeals from lithium mining companies last week, who urged authorities to reconsider the deadline, citing the high capital requirements needed to establish local refining infrastructure.
Industry representatives say the majority of producers are not yet ready for the transition from lithium concentrate exports to higher-value lithium sulphate production, which is expected to be mandatory under the proposed export ban on raw concentrates from January 2027.
According to Innocent Rukweza, chairperson of the Lithium Association of Zimbabwe, only one of the country’s seven major lithium producers is currently prepared to move into downstream processing at scale, highlighting the gap between policy ambitions and industry readiness.
Despite these concerns, government maintains that sufficient domestic processing capacity already exists within the sector, particularly through Chinese-invested firms such as Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe (PLZ) and Bikita Minerals, which have already developed beneficiation infrastructure.
Minister Ncube said these facilities are expected to play a central role in absorbing output from other miners that do not yet have their own processing plants.
“We can’t expect everybody to come up with a lithium concentrator, it’s expensive,” Ncube said. “So they should sign MoUs with PLZ and Bikita Minerals. To us that will be adequate for as long as they will process their throughput through those two companies,” he added.
The government’s position is part of a broader strategy to increase local value retention from Zimbabwe’s mineral resources, particularly lithium, which has become a strategic commodity in global electric vehicle and battery supply chains.
Under the policy framework, Zimbabwe intends to ban the export of lithium concentrates from January 2027, requiring miners to process output domestically before export in order to maximise revenue and deepen industrialisation.
While authorities argue the policy will strengthen the local economy and reduce raw mineral exports, mining companies continue to warn that implementation challenges and infrastructure constraints could affect production timelines and investment flows into the sector.
The debate is expected to intensify as the 2027 deadline approaches, with industry stakeholders pushing for a more phased transition while government maintains its firm stance on beneficiation-led growth.
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