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… takes pricing battle to China
From Charity Nwakaudu, Abuja
Africa must stop relying on its vast mineral deposits and build the market power needed to determine the value of its resources, Women in Mining Africa (WiM-Africa) has declared.
The Executive Director of WiM-Africa, Dr Comfort Asokoro-Ogaji, will make the case for stronger African influence in global metals pricing when she joins a high-level roundtable at the Shanghai Metals Expo 2026 in China in November.
The roundtable, organised by Shanghai Metals Market (SMM), is themed: “Eastern Pricing 2.0: Integrating Futures, Physical Markets, Industry and Finance for the Next Stage of Global Metals Pricing.”
Asokoro-Ogaji said Africa could not gain pricing power merely by possessing huge deposits of critical minerals.
“Africa cannot build pricing power simply by having minerals beneath its soil. We must put our African mineral ecosystem together our producers, geological and market data, processing capacity, standards, laboratories, commodity exchanges, financial institutions and regional value chains,” she said.
She said the continent must move beyond exporting raw minerals and strengthen processing, beneficiation, mineral data, certification, traceability, market intelligence and access to finance.
The WiM-Africa boss said the issue had become more urgent as global competition intensified over copper, lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths and other minerals critical to industrialisation and the energy transition.
According to her, Africa must seek a greater role in the systems where minerals are priced, traded and financed, rather than remaining largely at the point of extraction.
She said women and small-scale producers were particularly vulnerable because lack of access to credible prices, testing facilities, market information and direct buyers often left them operating only at the mine-gate level.
WiM-Africa also called for stronger collaboration among African governments, mining companies, commodity exchanges, financial institutions, laboratories, geological agencies, processors, traders, researchers and women-led enterprises.
The organisation said Africa must develop the infrastructure to not only produce minerals, but also process, trade and influence their value.
Asokoro-Ogaji’s participation follows expanded strategic cooperation between WiM-Africa and Shanghai Metals Market on mining, metals, battery minerals, market connectivity, technology and industry development.
She said Africa’s mineral wealth must ultimately translate into greater economic and pricing influence for the continent.
