Positive international macroeconomic trends over the last few months should have had a greater positive outcome for the local mining sector than the 12.8% improvement recorded in the first quarter, as reported in Statistics South Africa’s (StatsSA’s) latest gross domestic product (GDP) statistics, the Chamber of Mines (CoM) said on Wednesday. Considering that the global economy seems to be on the mend, albeit slowly and commodity prices seemingly having bottomed out and some starting to improve, digging deeper into these numbers reveals very concerning trends, said CoM chief economist Henk Langenhoven.
