South Africa's mining industry and diamond industry must move ahead on projects designed to develop skills that will ultimately give the country greater benefit from its mineral resources, Miningweekly.com quoted Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu as saying.

According to the report, Shabangu spoke at the formal opening of an East London diamond processing plant, a joint venture of the Matla Innovation group of South Africa and Gold Eastern, a Chinese gold company. The diamond processing plant features technology that will allow it to process eight times the number of polished diamonds that a plant of a similar size would if it were operated manually.

According to Matla Innovations, the diamond plant made financial sense. Findings by MSNBC from 2009 showed that South Africa spent $60/carat on diamond cutting and polishing as opposed to China's $17/carat and India's $10/carat.

The new East London processing plant would bring the processing cost down to between $25-$40 per carat within a year, said Matla Innovations Chairperson Zwelakhe Sisulu, adding that the goal of matching China's per-carat cost of $17 was "well within reach."

In addition to cutting South Africa's diamond processing costs, skills transfer would be a major part of the investment, said Matla Innovations CEO Chia-Chao Wu. Wu added that the plant was currently run by Chinese workers, but that those workers had a mandate to train local residents to run the plant within two years. He explained that Matla Innovation had set a goal of training 150-200 people a year as diamond cutters and polishers.

Over the next two years, the diamond plant is expected to create as many as 120 jobs for skilled workers, and an additional 500 jobs in the subsequent five years.

Wu said that one of the major motivations for the Matla Innovation group to locate its plant on the country's Eastern Cape was the area's population of young people who needed new skills and work opportunities and were willing to learn.

Matla Innovation was also looking into the possibility of using the plant to break into jewelry manufacturing, mainly for emerging markets in Africa and elsewhere.

For South Africa to become a major player in international diamond production, the processing plant must succeed, Shabangu said. The minister pointed out that many of the leading diamond producing nations today had no history in the industry, but used South African diamonds to develop technology.

"If we… want to be a global powerhouse in the diamond industry, we must develop a culture of technology innovation," Shabangu declared.