A few weeks ago, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the start of production of AMBATOVY.
With a total cost of more than US$8 billion, the AMBATOVY Project represents the largest Foreign Direct Investment ever made in MADAGASCAR, as well as one of the largest in sub-Saharan Africa over the past 30 years.
Beyond these figures, AMBATOVY, as well as Q.M.M., have always been fully committed to initiatives aimed at making the transformation of mineral resources a sustainable development factor for the country and the regions hosting their exploitation sites, both economically, socially and environmentally, in accordance with the best international standards.
However, Q.M.M. and AMBATOVY are today the showcases, the "locomotives" of a Mining Sector that has been moving in slow motion for too long now, even though the competition around the energy transition is accelerating on a global scale.
We cannot, in this perspective, believe that the Malagasy State can refuse to support the development of a sector with prospects of socio-economic benefits so crucial for the emergence of the nation, such as the increase in export revenues and tax revenues and the creation of employment opportunities, not to mention the development of structuring infrastructures for the country.
At a second level, the Mining Sector should also be considered as a major potential actor in an integrated approach likely to accelerate the emergence of value chains and other activities or industrial sectors associated, among other things, with the transfer of skills and technologies.
This vision, these opportunities, require, however, the imperative restoration of good governance and sectoral transparency associated with a clear, modern and sufficiently attractive regulatory and fiscal framework to induce responsible investment in the exploitation of mineral resources.
These are essential conditions for the national mining sector to finally free itself from the obstacles and dysfunctions that have paralysed it for over a decade.
It is no longer time for procrastination, but for commitment and action.
We have, in fact, entered the era of transition with full force and MADAGASCAR has no other choice but to move forward at the risk of not being able to get on the "right wagon".
