Suspended shipments will resume only if producers meet export, tax, and beneficiation conditions, Zimbabwe’s Mines Ministry has said
Zimbabwe’s government has said it will impose export quotas on lithium concentrates and set conditions for the resumption of suspended shipments, tightening state control over a mineral critical to global battery supply chains.
The southern African nation’s Mines Ministry announced the measure in an April 2 letter to the Chamber of Mines, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Under the new rules, producers must publish annual financial statements and meet labor, safety, and environmental standards.
“Approved lithium concentrate export quotas will be communicated to each producer,” the ministry said, according to Reuters.
Mining companies will also have to provide written commitments and timelines for building lithium sulphate plants before January 1, 2027, when Zimbabwe’s planned ban on lithium concentrate exports is due to take effect. A 10% export tax on concentrate shipments will remain in place until then.
Harare suspended exports of lithium concentrates and other raw minerals on February 26, saying the move was meant to curb malpractice and leakages in the mining sector and enforce local value addition. The ban covered minerals already in transit. Zimbabwe had already moved against raw lithium exports in 2022, when it restricted shipments of lithium-bearing ore and unbeneficiated lithium except under ministerial permit.
The country is Africa’s largest and the world’s fourth largest producer of lithium, a key component in electric-vehicle batteries and renewable energy storage systems. It reportedly exported more than 1.1 million metric tons of lithium-bearing spodumene concentrate, most of it to China, in 2025, accounting for about 15% of Chinese imports of the material that year.
Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt has built a $400 million lithium sulphate plant in Zimbabwe, while Sinomine and Yahua have also announced plans to build processing facilities at their mines.
In recent years, several African countries have sought to retain a greater share of mining revenues by restricting raw mineral exports and pushing investors to process more resources locally.
Zimbabwe’s neighbor Malawi banned exports of unprocessed minerals last October in a bid to spur investment in local processing capacity, while Namibia prohibited bulk exports of unprocessed ores in 2023 to encourage domestic beneficiation.
