Abstract
The first decade of the millennium saw rapid growth in mining companies based out of emerging markets and their first tentative steps onto the world stage. Several factors contributed to these developments, the economic liberalisation of the 1990s and the ending of the Cold War, the existence in these countries of a substantial portion of the world's undeveloped resources, a commodity boom which gave the companies access to international capital markets, a desire for geographical and commodity diversification, and a need to secure raw materials for domestic processing industries through backward integration. The emerging market miners have become formidable competitors for the large miners based out of developed countries. They frequently benefit from preferential access to resources on their home territories, and they are well adapted to managing the risks of operating in other emerging market countries, while the participation of the state in some of these companies gives them a level of political support that the traditional miners cannot expect. This last point is particularly relevant to China. These companies do, nonetheless, face significant challenges also, not least those arising from the need to work across different business cultures and those connected with corporate governance.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 7-14 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Mineral Economics |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 8 Jun 2011 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2011 |
Keywords
- China
- Emerging markets
- Mining
- Nationalism
- Russia
- Vale
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Economic Geology