According to the International Business Daily, Africa holds approximately 30% of the world's proven reserves of critical minerals, boasting significant advantages in strategic minerals such as cobalt, platinum-group metals, lithium, and manganese. In recent years, resource-rich African nations—including Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Zambia—have successively tightened controls on raw mineral exports, with policies covering a range of minerals such as lithium and cobalt. As a core global supplier of critical minerals, this collective policy shift across the continent represents a profound adjustment in the development paths of these resource-rich nations; it will also have long-term, far-reaching impacts on global mineral trade patterns, price formation mechanisms, and models of international cooperation.

Reassessing Mineral Value Is No Easy Task

Against the backdrop of the ongoing global energy transition, the rapid expansion of the new energy industry chain has driven demand for critical minerals into a phase of high-speed growth. Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) indicates that under a net-zero emissions scenario, demand for critical minerals for clean energy technologies is projected to double by 2030; specifically, demand for lithium is expected to grow more than fortyfold, while demand for minerals such as cobalt and copper will also expand several times over. Long-term expectations of rising demand continue to drive up both the strategic and economic value of mineral resources.

For a long time, most resource-rich African nations have relied on the export of primary mineral products as their core development model, placing them at the bottom of the global mining value chain, while a significant portion of the high value-added from resource development flows to overseas mid- and downstream sectors. Statistics from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) show that unprocessed raw materials consistently account for over 60% of Africa's mineral exports. Consequently, the advantage of abundant natural resources has not been fully translated into a sustained engine for economic growth and improved livelihoods, and the limitations of a resource-dependent development model are becoming increasingly apparent.

Against this backdrop, a growing number of African nations are adjusting their mining development strategies, using policy tools to compel the extension of the industry chain into the domestic market. Since the beginning of 2025, more than ten African countries have introduced or revised mining regulations to tighten restrictions on raw mineral exports—addressing areas such as export tariffs, local processing requirements, and access to mining rights—in order to promote domestic value addition. Both the intensity and scope of these policies have reached new highs in recent years. In this regard, Wu Zewei, a specially appointed researcher at SUSHANG Bank, noted that the core drivers behind the wave of tightened raw ore export regulations in African resource-rich nations are the revaluation of resources and the need for domestic economic transformation. As the global energy transition accelerates, demand for critical minerals for new energy technologies has surged, continuously enhancing the strategic value of these resources. Nations are increasingly moving away from low-yield development models based solely on exporting primary minerals, seeking to break free from the long-standing "resource curse." Simultaneously, there is a pressing need to boost fiscal revenue and expand employment. Coupled with rising global resource nationalism, these countries aim to use policy interventions to retain the high-value-added gains from minerals, increase the share of domestic industrial earnings, and strengthen their bargaining power within the global mineral supply chain.

Challenges in Scaling Up Mineral Processing

While policies have charted the course for industrial upgrading, the transition from raw ore exports to domestic deep processing cannot be achieved overnight through administrative mandates alone. Mineral smelting and deep processing are capital-, technology-, and energy-intensive industries; historically, global production capacity has been concentrated in the industrialized regions of East Asia, Europe, and North America. Despite possessing some of the world's largest mineral reserves, African nations account for a negligible share of downstream processing capacity. Cobalt serves as a prime example: domestic refining capacity in Africa stands at less than 5%, with the vast majority of cobalt exported as raw ore or semi-processed products—a clear indication of a fragmented value chain.

Power supply also acts as a bottleneck hindering the establishment of deep processing facilities. World Bank data indicates that industrial power supply in Sub-Saharan Africa is often unstable and costly. Given that mineral smelting is highly energy-intensive, a reliable and affordable power supply is fundamental to operations. Furthermore, deficiencies in infrastructure—such as cross-border transport and port logistics—drive up the cost of exporting processed goods, erode competitiveness in international markets, and diminish the region's appeal for industrial investment. When compounded by issues such as the lack of supporting industrial ecosystems, a shortage of high-level technical talent, and significant funding gaps, the practical obstacles facing Africa's transition toward domestic processing become starkly apparent.

Wu Zewei believes that African nations face multiple, deeply entrenched hurdles in their efforts to advance domestic value-added mineral processing. Most of these countries possess weak industrial foundations, lacking the necessary supporting capacity for smelting and processing as well as core production equipment, resulting in incomplete industrial value chains. At the same time, a shortage of local high-end technical talent and limited R&D and production capabilities for deep mineral processing hinder large-scale, refined processing operations. Furthermore, a combination of factors—including inadequate infrastructure, unstable power supplies, technological barriers imposed by foreign entities, significant funding gaps for local industries, and immature management systems—collectively constrains the large-scale, high-quality development of the local deep-processing sector.

Risks in Reshaping the Global Mining Industry

Adjustments to mining policies in African nations are propagating through the entire global mineral supply chain, driving systemic shifts in global mining trade, pricing mechanisms, and cooperation models.

The supply elasticity of critical minerals is inherently low, and the cycles for mine development and capacity building span several years; consequently, supply gaps resulting from reduced raw ore exports cannot be quickly offset by capacity in other regions. This directly constricts the global flow of primary mineral products, leading to tight market conditions. In its commodity outlook report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) identified the spread of resource nationalism policies as a major risk factor driving up prices for critical minerals over the next three to five years.

Wu Zewei analyzes that the tightening of African raw ore export policies will reshape the global supply landscape and price trends for critical minerals. In the short term, the global supply of primary minerals will contract periodically, exacerbating market tightness and driving up prices for strategic minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and copper. In the long term, as the volume of direct raw ore exports shrinks and the share of deep-processed finished products rises, the structure of global mineral trade will shift from trading primary raw materials to trading high-end finished goods. Overall supply chain stability will weaken, and risks associated with regional supply concentration will become more pronounced; meanwhile, the logic behind global mineral pricing will increasingly align with supply-demand fundamentals and regional policy orientations.

Underlying these changes in trade structure is a profound evolution in global mining cooperation models. For decades, international mining companies operating in Africa relied on a "resource extraction and raw ore export" model, focusing primarily on securing stable supplies of raw materials. However, as African nations increasingly demand industrial value addition and benefit sharing, traditional trade-based cooperation models are no longer suited to the new policy environment.

Wu Zewei notes that the increased participation of African nations in local mineral trading and revenue distribution will reshape long-term global mining cooperation models. The traditional cooperation model—characterized by simple resource trade and development led by foreign capital—is gradually disintegrating, giving way to new trends centered on resource localization and benefit sharing. Future transnational mining cooperation will move beyond basic extraction and sales, shifting toward deep-integration models that emphasize technology localization, joint production capacity building, and industrial development. As the threshold for cooperation rises, investors must align with local industrial upgrading needs and balance local benefit distribution with industry cultivation; long-term, mutually beneficial cooperative mechanisms will become the industry norm.

From a long-term perspective, this round of policy adjustments represents a strategic choice for the development of Africa's mining sector rather than a temporary trade control measure. In late 2024, the African Union officially released the African Green Minerals Strategy, establishing four key pillars: mineral development, capacity building (talent and technology), local value addition, and mineral governance. Through systematic planning, the strategy aims to transform Africa's advantage in critical mineral resources into a core driver for industrialization, economic diversification, and green transition. As more countries follow suit by adjusting policies and regulating specific minerals, the localization and restructuring of Africa's mineral supply chains will become a long-term trend. Wu Zewei notes that resource localization and value addition across the industrial chain have become core consensus points for African mining development, ensuring the sustainability and stability of these policy adjustments. As national mining governance systems improve, the scope of these policies will expand; regulations will extend from strategic minerals for new energy to a broader range of abundant resources. Concurrently, more African nations with significant resource endowments will implement similar control measures, further accelerating the global process of localizing and restructuring mineral supply chains.

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