Anjin to return to Marange fields

Zimbabwean media reported that Anjin Investments, the diamond company partly owned by the Chinese, is expected to return to the mines in the Marange diamond fields of eastern Zimbabwe.
Reportedly, local villagers and human-rights activists are not impressed. Before Anjin was expelled from the Marange diamond fields some three years ago by past President Robert Mugabe, the company was accused of of various human-rights violations and evading payment of taxes and royalties.

However, earlier this year President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government chose Anjin and Russia’s Alrosa as the two foreign companies that would participate in Zimbabwe’s diamond industry. Anjin is a joint venture between a Chinese company, Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Co. Ltd., and Matt Bronze Enterprises, which was formed by the Zimbabwe Defense Ministry and the Zimbabwe Defense Forces, through an intermediary company.

When diamonds were discovered in the Marange area in 2006, many people living in this semi-arid region had hoped to see benefit from the mining of the alluvial diamond deposits. More than a decade later, these hopes have remained a mirage.

The Epoch Times of Zimbabwe wrote that “ activists and experts in Zimbabwe are worried of the growing Chinese influence in the country’s critical infrastructure and natural resources. Chinese companies and government have extended loans worth billions of dollars to Zimbabwe in the past decade, and there are concerns that China would take the country’s land and critical institutions to recover its funds if Zimbabwe fails to pay back the loans.”