JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Strong new thrusts are planned for next year’s Investing in African Mining Indaba, which is scheduled to take place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from February 5 to 8, once again to support investment in mining companies operating in Africa and to provide an effective platform for mining companies to communicate their objectives to investors.

Upcoming innovations to be introduced include the launching of a new junior mining zone concept, the ushering in of a VIP buyers’ programme to boost opportunities for exhibitors of equipment, goods and services, and a further bolstering of the event’s already solid investor community involvement.

The VIP buyers’ programme is aimed providing the opportunity for the exhibitors of equipment, goods and services to gain beneficial access to mining company COOs, operational directors and procurement executives.

The organisers are again reporting excellent response from African governments, with escalating interest from West Africa and East Africa in particular.

On the outreach to junior miners, Investing in African Mining Indaba MD Alex Grose told Mining Weekly Online in an exclusive interview in Johannesburg: “We’re going to have an area of the event devoted to what we're calling the Junior Mining Showcase.” (Also watch attached Creamer Media video).

The demand for optimum junior participation has been the common theme of responses of investors, mining majors and exhibitors to questionnaires.

“We love the support we get from the mining giants, and without the big mining majors we wouldn’t have an event, but interestingly, large mining companies also want greater junior involvement, as do investors and exhibitors.

“Without juniors, everything else is impacted, and their absence was probably our huge miss in previous years,” said Grose.

Considerable time has been spent canvassing opinion on the most effective ways of pre-arranging  and guaranteeing Indaba meetings between the investor relations teams of mining companies and investors.

Every effort is also being made to balance the needs of conference attendees for good content with the needs of exhibitors for good exposure to procurement decision makers and the needs of investors for deal flow.

“Everyone coming together once a year has so many benefits and it’s not only what happens in that conference room and on the main exhibition floor but also what happens at the many matchmaking sessions and speed networking sessions, and the contests where juniors have an opportunity to pitch directly to investors,” he said.

Last year’s mining investment battlefield competition, which will be held again in 2018, provided an opportunity for junior mining companies to pitch their projects to a panel of expert investors, and  to compete for prizes to support the development of their projects.

Strong government support is ongoing, with countries that attended last year including Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Zambia, Morocco, Mali, Rwanda, Gabon, Madagascar, Namibia, Nigeria, Kenya, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Liberia, Lesotho, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Togo, Sudan and Angola.