Zimbabwe SI 213 of 2022 — Base Minerals Export Control (Lithium Bearing Ores and Unbeneficiated Lithium) Order, 2022

Mechanism

SI 213 of 2022 prohibits the export of lithium-bearing ores and unbeneficiated (unprocessed) lithium from Zimbabwe unless the Minister of Mines and Mining Development grants written permission. It does not reach already-beneficiated lithium concentrate, which continued to move under the prior regime — the concentrate loophole itself wasn't closed until the February 2026 ministerial directive suspended all raw-mineral and lithium-concentrate exports outright.

The order followed a wave of Chinese acquisitions of Zimbabwean hard-rock lithium assets (Sinomine's 2022 Bikita Minerals purchase, Huayou's Arcadia/ Prospect Lithium stake) and was framed domestically as a value-addition measure: force ore into local processing plants rather than letting it leave as feedstock for refining elsewhere, and cut into revenue the government said it was losing to illegal, unlicensed ore smuggling.

Downstream implications

• Sets the permit-based export-control template (Minister's written consent

as the sole exemption) that SI 57 of 2023 later tightened with citizenship and processing-plant conditions specific to lithium.

• Chinese-owned Zimbabwean lithium miners (Bikita, Arcadia/Prospect, Sabi

Star) had to commit to domestic concentration/processing capacity to keep exporting at all.

• No quantitative penalty or trade-value figure is disclosed in the

instrument itself or in secondary coverage reviewed; severity is qualitative.

Open questions

• Exact volume/value of lithium ore exports displaced by the ban in

2022–2023 is not disclosed in any source reviewed.

• Whether any producer was ever refused the Minister's written-permission

exemption, versus the provision being unused in practice, is not documented publicly.