Zimbabwe’s Lithium Policy Starts to Bite as Yahua Secures Kamativi Export Quota

Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group (SZSE: 002497) has secured a six-month export quota for lithium concentrates from Zimbabwe, allowing shipments to resume from its Kamativi mine after the government’s February suspension of raw lithium concentrate exports. Yahua told investors the quota would be sufficient to ensure normal production at Kamativi, one of the better-known lithium operations in northwestern Zimbabwe.

This is an important test case because Zimbabwe is not simply trying to keep lithium in the ground or out of the country. It is trying to change the terms on which the material leaves. Earlier this month, the government said concentrate exports would resume under quotas, taxes and local-processing commitments, with a full ban on concentrate exports still planned for 2027. That makes Kamativi one of the first visible examples of how the new system will work in practice. 

Zimbabwe exported 1.128 million metric tonnes of spodumene concentrate to China in 2025, equivalent to roughly 15 per cent of China’s lithium concentrate imports. That gives the country more relevance than its current processing footprint alone might suggest. It is not yet one of the major refined lithium centres but it has become an increasingly important upstream supplier to the Chinese battery chain. 

What the Yahua quota shows is that Harare still wants exports to continue, but under a stricter industrial policy framework. Producers will be expected to show more than tonnage. They will be expected to show some pathway toward domestic value addition. In that sense, Kamativi is more than a mine story. It is an early reading on whether Zimbabwe can tighten control without choking off the very investment it wants to deepen.