THE Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe is holding seminars to show small scale miners the strategies they can use to improve production.

Some of the seminars will be held in Bulawayo, Gweru and Karoi, traditional areas where small scale miners are based.

Topics to be covered will include rock identification, uses and occurrences of minerals and pegging of mine claims.

The seminars will also concentrate on the value addition and benefication of minerals, marketing and exportation of minerals and micro-financing of mining operations.

"The seminars are part of a project we have embarked on so that we can educate the small scale miners on a number of issues related to their business," MMCZ acting general manager Mrs Simangaliso Makoni said recently. The seminars to be held under the banner, "Discover the mineral value chain" will draw speakers from the Ministry of Mines and Energy, University of Zimbabwe's Geology Department, Small Enterprises Development Corporation, Export Credit Guarantee Company, National Miners Association and several financial institutions.

"There are certain issues which we have discovered and put on the agenda but we are not at liberty to divulge the issues now because it would be premature to do so at this stage," she added.

These seminars come at a time when there are efforts to give those in the small sector a chance to take a part in the national economy.

Some of the small-scale miners have encountered problems in their search for markets resulting in them selling to unscrupulous buyers offering low prices.