Mineral Accounts for South Africa: 1990–2010

The mining sector is one of the cornerstones of the economy in South Africa. The mining industry contributes to economic activities, the development of sustainable job opportunities as well as foreign exchange earnings. These natural resources are extracted by the mining industry for different economic activities. The mining sector contributes about 18% to the country's corporate tax receipts. Even though the mining activities consume 15% of the national electricity, the sector still contributes more than 95% towards the country's electricity generation. The main gold producing area is concentrated in the Witwatersrand Basin. This mineral accounts discussion document is the seventh edition in the series produced by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) for the reference period 1990 to 2010. The compilation of mineral accounts follows the System of National Accounts (SNA) principles, and the information is presented in the form of physical, monetary as well as resource rent accounts. The results in this document are also presented by using the ElSerafy's User-cost method in table format. Geographical representations of the active mines in South Africa are shown in the document. Stats SA uses the System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) framework as the guideline in the compilation of the mineral accounts. Section 2 presents the importance of mineral accounts in South Africa. Section 3 presents the updated physical accounts for South Africa where the production (extraction) rate and years to depletion are shown. In section 4, the resource rent accounts are presented along with a summary of the results. In section 5, the monetary accounts are presented with monetary values of South Africa's proven gold, PGM, coal and iron ore reserves. The monetary accounts are developed with the resource rent accounts as its basis. Section 6 focuses on the concept of sustainability and the approaches on how to measure sustainability with the El-Serafy's User-cost method.