Namibia has shown significant improvement on the overall investment attractiveness index in the 2022 Fraser Institute survey of mining companies, moving up seven points from 52 to 59.

The country ranked 38th out of 62 jurisdictions surveyed, compared to 59th out of 84 in 2021. Namibia also ranked sixth out of 16 African jurisdictions surveyed.

"Namibia's performance in the 2022 Fraser report is fairly good, although it could have been better. This is especially so as the Namibian government has greatly improved legislation that encourages exploration," said chamber of mines president Zebra Kasete.

The index measures a country's competitiveness, combining the policy perception index and the best practices mineral potential index.

While Namibia improved on the best practices mineral potential index, its policy perception index score fell by six points due to concerns related to the "unilateral powers of the minister of mines to make various determinations like royalty levels" and "a lack of mineral rights security," according to the report.

However, Namibia was commended for having "good foreign investment policies into mining."

Veston Malango, CEO of the Chamber of Mines, emphasised that the chamber is actively engaging mines and energy minister Tom Alweendo on the Minerals Bill.

Malango said he is confident that the policy concerns cited in the survey will be addressed in the Minerals Bill review which is at an advanced stage.

"The chamber is positive that the finalisation of this bill will elevate Namibia's overall investment attractiveness in the global mining space," Malango said.