Aggressive Bikita Minerals appoints new MD

**New Bikita Minerals Managing Director, Gong Xuedong**

Nyashadzashe Ndoro

Bikita Minerals, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of the lithium mineral, petalite, has appointed Gong Xuedong as the new Managing Director, replacing Zhenhua Wang, who takes up a new role in China at Sinomine Group Headquarters.

In a notice on Wednesday, the mining giant confirmed Xuedong’s appointment saying the new MD is a professor-level senior engineer with 23 years of experience in mining and smelting engineering project management and production management in the non-ferrous metal industry.

“Mr. Gong Xuedong has been appointed as the Managing Director of Bikita Minerals with effect from the 1st of January, 2024. Mr. Gong has 23 years of experience in mining and smelting engineering project management and production management in the non-ferrous metal industry.

“He is a professor-level senior engineer and holds a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Engineering (International Project Management) among many other certificates and qualifications that he attained throughout his career,” Bikita Minerals said.

Last December, President Emmerson Mnangagwa commissioned the US$300 million Bikita Minerals’ spodumene and petalite processing plants in Masvingo Province, which reportedly ignited excitement among locals who are set to benefit through value addition, employment and sustainable development.

During the commissioning of the plants, Masvingo Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister, Ezra Chadzamira thanked Bikita Minerals for its corporate responsibility plans, which will include the electrification of communities around.

“We are grateful as a province that we continue to be beneficiaries of the gains of His Excellency, President Mnangagwa’s economic diplomacy, particularly under the ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’ mantra,” he said.

“We will thus, with unity of purpose across all provincial stakeholders, seek to drive economic growth, attract investment, and mould a friendly ecosystem for entrepreneurship, research, and development thus supporting the vision of His Excellency of being an upper middle-income economy by 2030.

“The power line, planned rural electrification, and many more social corporate responsibility programmes will transform the quality of life of our communities. The Second Republic has undoubtedly reflected its commitment to achieving sustainability through development projects,” said Chadzamira.