The Impact of Mineral Production on Zimbabwe Economic Growth and Development.

The study sought to assess the impact of mineral production on Zimbabwe economic growth and development. The Zimbabwean government has put mineral production and exportation as an important key to fight against poverty, create more wealth increasing employment and productivity in the mining industries/Sector. The mining sector requires a large amount of capital to attain the required 90% production capacity to effectively increase mineral output. However, the mining sector has been experiencing the production constraints owing to the liquidity challenges affecting the economy, lack of credit lines, lack of confidence in the banking sector which affects savings, high rate of corruption and misallocation of resources in the mining sector. The study used Ordinal least square method (OLS) to come up with the regression model and results. The Cobb Douglas model was also used to come with a specified model. The results from the study show that only mineral exports contribute meaningfully to mineral output growth, the other variables in the model are insignificant. The main conclusion was that the mining sector relies on retrained earnings from exports for investment. The research recommended that government creates a conductive environment for investment and an exporting framework so as to increase the growth potential of the mining sector. Creating value addition and beneficiation method policy to the mineral products and creating confidence in the banking sector to increase savings. A stable macroeconomic environment is critical for the mining sector to achieve its targets. Reduce or eliminate corruption, invest in exploration, research and development of new mine and focus on linkages.