In this regard, we drew inspiration from our long-standing and well-entrenched culture of partnership in mining, which has consistently served us well during this difficult time. At this all-important meeting, we agreed on a specific programme of action. We agreed that the government's side would be led by the Department of Mineral Resources, National Treasury and the Department of Labour, while participation from the mining companies would be led by chairpersons of the boards, and will also engage the leadership of trade unions.
This was a bold and decisive action taken with a view to dealing head-on with the challenges faced by our economy. This has arisen because of a crisis of perception, of our country and the mining industry, which invariably has affected, among other things, the fluctuations of our exchange rate, the results of which we can ill afford as a country.
This process that was established at the Friday meeting is scheduled to conclude its initial tasks and provide a progress report within a month. Whilst we respect workers' inalienable right to strike and the right to freedom of association, as enshrined in our Constitution, we will not tolerate anarchy, violence, intimidation and illegal strikes, which threaten not just our democratic freedom, but also the sustainable growth and employment in a sector with so much to offer, not only in terms of retaining employment, but also in terms of creating new jobs on a larger scale than ordinarily would be the case. We are, accordingly, calling on all signatories to honour the letter and spirit of the law and the recently signed framework for peace and stability in the mining industry.
We need to join hands urgently and deal a cruel blow to those who are wilfully undermining the well-established system of collective bargaining that has been a critical component of the mining industry. It is true that South Africa has the world's largest mineral endowment with an estimated value of US$3,8 trillion. With these endowments, if properly exploited using the combination of appropriate policies and regulatory frameworks such as we have, we are more than capable of breaking the back of the triple evil of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
There is a confluence of factors which gives us good reason to be optimistic. Both the 2013 World Bank's Doing Business and the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report place South Africa in the top quartile. These reports show a set of enabling factors including, among other things, the ease of doing business; investor protection; access to loans; starting a business; and ease of dealing with construction permits, which, if properly harnessed, could significantly create a broad-based and robust economy, which our country desperately needs. In the same vein, I am encouraged by the voices of the young people in the leadership of the ANC Youth League who are saying boldly: "It is cool to get an education and get a degree." After all, it was the late ANC president Oliver Tambo who said: "A country that does not take care of its youth does not deserve its future". This is the kind of spirit that we need to reignite among workers in the Rustenburg platinum belt and the mining executives.
Hon members, as you know, we are currently in a cycle of wage negotiations in the mining industry, which we have done for decades. This year should be no different. However, there has never been a more opportune time to call on the protagonists in these negotiations to be more responsible and take decisions that will retain jobs, bring about stability in this sector, and ultimately help our economy as it emerges from the ravages of the recent economic downturn.
We should all take responsibility and accept accountability for the success of these negotiations. For, if we do not grasp the nettle, we run the risk of losing jobs and further fuelling negative perceptions that are being used to run our country down at a most inopportune time. Accordingly, we believe that if we can work together and forgo our narrow interests and act in the interests of all our people, we will indeed be able to rise to the challenges of regrouping and consolidating the existing building blocks for the long-term success of our mining industry.
This time last year, some observers were in a state of frenzy which they attributed to, among other things, calls by some siren voices for nationalisation. The ANC's Mangaung conference unequivocally rejected this option and further called for the intensification of beneficiation and industrialisation, which have been part of ANC policy since we adopted the Ready to Govern document, the declaration of strategic minerals, and the promotion of the state-owned mining company, among other things. These decisions demonstrate that South Africa's premier liberation movement, the ANC, is keen to ensure that we balance the imperatives of transformation with those of competitiveness of this crucial sector of our economy.
We believe that we have created a predictable regulatory environment which is in sync with the dynamic socioeconomic and political landscape of our country. This has resulted in the following milestones, whilst we still face challenges. Gross fixed capital formation has increased significantly under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, from R18 billion in 2004 to R75 billion in 2012. Foreign direct investment grew exponentially from R112 billion to R389 billion from 2004 to 2012. Also, employment grew from approximately 449 909 in 2004 to 519 240 in 2012. In addition, gross sales of primary minerals have appreciated from R98 billion in 2000 to R371 billion in 2012, whilst the number of operating mines has increased from 993 in 2004 to 1 579 in 2012.
This is over and above the fact that during the 2012-13 financial year, 56 new mining rights were granted and have the potential to create an additional 11 000 decent and sustainable jobs and attract capital expenditure of about R7,3 billion. More than a decade of implementation has provided us with sufficient jurisprudence to further review and amend the Act. We sought to effect a holistic review and amendments of the principal Act that will cater for dynamic changes and sufficiently incorporate the notion of subsequent events.
Following Cabinet approval in 2012, we are satisfied with the quality of extensive stakeholder consultations and their substantive input. The issues raised by stakeholders centred on, among other things, the definitions; the repeal of the first-come-first-served principle; trading in shares and transfer of rights; the environmental provisions; ministerial discretion on mineral beneficiation and state free carried interest; the revised sanctions; and the concept of associated minerals. All these quality submissions have been duly considered in the process of finalising the Bill.
The Bill enhances the social and labour plans, SLPs, and also includes integration of SLPs into the integrated development plans of district municipalities in order to streamline and optimise the development impact of the mining industry. It introduces provisions for the classification of mineral resources as strategic, taking into account strategic national developmental imperatives.
The Bill realigns functions in order to consolidate the regulation of petroleum resources under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, while promoting geoscientific research functions as incorporated in the Council for Geoscience. The Bill is in its final stages of Cabinet processes and will be submitted to Parliament soon.
There has been further improvement of the health and safety of workers in the mining industry since the implementation of the Mine Health and Safety Act. Currently, I have directed the department to embark on a process to review the Mine Health and Safety Act and align it with the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act to ensure consistency, and ensure that we employ regulatory best practice regarding the impact that mining activities will have on the health and safety of mine employees and affected communities.
The review of the Mine Health and Safety Act seeks to, amongst other things, strengthen enforcement provisions, streamline the administrative processes, reinforce offences and penalties, remove ambiguities in certain definitions and expressions, and harmonise the Act with other laws, in particular the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act.
May I report that we have made sterling progress in the implementation of the SA Mineral Resources Administration System, Samrad online, since it was launched. Prospective applicants are now able to apply for rights using computers online without having to travel to the regional offices to lodge an application. The system contains information regarding land availability, requirements for various types of applications to be lodged, and payment arrangements for fees payable. As a benefit of that, contestation as a result of the documents getting lost is going to be a thing of the past in my department.
To assist applicants, guidelines and templates were then supplied to improve the quality of applications as well as ensure consistency in the adjudication process. We are continually making sure that we improve this system in order to deliver an application system that is seamless and efficient. In this regard, applications for prospecting, mining rights, permits and ancillary applications, such as sections 11 and 102, can be lodged online. These include, among other things, a module which provides for the auto-parking of applications, which address one of the key concerns that have been raised by prospective applicants. This is being carried with the additional allocation by Treasury of R3 million for the current financial year.
We introduced the Broad-Based Socioeconomic Empowerment Charter for the South African mining industry, commonly known as the Mining Charter, to effect the meaningful transformation of the mining industry consistent with our democratic landscape. This was a consensus document by mining stakeholders that introduced a transitional transformation window of 10 years, with specific targets to be attained in 2014. We subjected the efficacy of this transformation tool to a rigorous test in 2009 in respect of its progress, the findings of which were less than desirable. During this time, every other stakeholder suffered from a case of parochial amnesia in terms of their responsibility for the implementation of this transformation agenda. As a result, we ended up with widely varied accounts on the extent or otherwise of the progress that has been made in this regard.
In order to obviate a recurrence of this misrepresentation and distortion, my department has initiated a comprehensive evaluation of transformation against the scorecard of the amended Mining Charter as a precursor to the 2014 transformational milestone.
Let me emphasise that we have no intention of shifting the goalposts with regard to our targets, but we wish to reiterate that we remain unequivocal and resolute in our commitment to transformation, which remains a vital component of normalising our society and creating a genuinely nonracial and democratic country without which we will not have a prosperous future. [Applause.]
The social problem that was accentuated by the unfortunate developments at Marikana in 2012, as well as several other related occurrences, reflects that there have been glaring lapses in the implementation of our transformation tool. I cannot overemphasise the urgent need to modernise the mining industry entirely, including recruitment patterns that remain trapped in the archaic model of migrant labour systems that entrenched apartheid. This system results in mineworkers leading multiple lives which they struggle to sustain.
In this regard, I call upon the entire mining industry to develop a 10-year company-specific strategy that will transition this industry from the obsolete model to one that is part of the modern society within which it operates, without creating abrupt discontinuities that result in unnecessary instability.
This will enable us to enhance our goal of competitiveness, improve the working and living conditions of mineworkers, and, ultimately, reduce the dependence of workers on the mining industry. Further, such strategies will assist us in preparing for the transition well in advance, anticipate the potential effect and plan accordingly to manage the transition to an appropriately modernised mining industry. In this regard, we also recognise the work of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry and we are confident that it will be able to emerge with recommendations which will strengthen our resolve to improve the lives of mineworkers and their immediate communities.
The President also established an interministerial committee to address socioeconomic developmental challenges arising out of the mining industry. The aforesaid IMC has developed a responsive presidential package, the results of which will be released soon, to optimise inclusive community development and improve the living and working conditions of mineworkers.
The coal sector is important for the economy of South Africa. The accelerated demand for coal, accompanied by an increase in international coal prices, has invariably changed the buying patterns and structure of the coal export industry. The emergence of the export market for lower grade coal has presented the government with a challenge in that it has constrained the availability of coal that was historically sold to our utility, Eskom.
In our national energy plan, coal remains an important component of our future energy mix and requirements. It is therefore paramount that we work towards a common objective, in which South Africa Inc confronts the challenges facing the coal industry and turns them into net positive opportunities for all.
We remain certain that certain minerals such as coal should be declared strategic national resources, based on the balance of evidence. The coal resources and reserves report has been concluded by the Council for Geoscience, and we hope to release the findings soon.
Hon members, last year Cabinet approved and accepted the release of a comprehensive report compiled by experts on hydraulic fracturing, which not only confirmed a shale gas resource of 485 trillion cubic feet, but also extensively considered optimal exploitation of the resource that appropriately balances economic interest with both environmental and social development considerations. The report was widely accepted by all interested and affected parties.
Cabinet was directed to establish an interdepartmental technical committee to develop regulations to presage further development of the shale gas resource. The committee will release the appropriate regulations soon, which then will be made public. We are engaging legal processes to finalise the establishment of a state-owned mining company, also with the intention to hive it off from the Central Energy Fund. [Interjections.] The prophets of doom have started.
The platinum and gold sectors, which are amongst the largest sectors of our mining industry in terms of employment, investment and revenue generation, are negatively affected by the persistent global economic market environment, which has an adverse bearing on their long-term viability.
Our recently concluded bilateral agreement with Russia during the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa summit - Brics summit - in Durban on co-operation in the development of the platinum group of metals is premised on an understanding that parties will make every effort to achieve, among other things, sustainable expansion of the PGM market, create value-adding enterprises closer to production, and work towards realising the potential for developing other sectors of the economy. It is our considered view that this bilateral co-operation will contribute significantly to the creation of a suite of interventions necessary to stabilise the platinum industry. Therefore, I invite PGM companies to work with my department to leverage relations we have established with the Russian Republic.
In January this year, Anglo American Platinum announced its intention to restructure its business, following which President Zuma and the chairman of Anglo American plc, Sir Parker, met in Pretoria and agreed to find sustainable interventions that would enable business continuity and sustainability, whilst preserving employment where possible.
It is our firm belief that working together, we have found a sustainable, discerning solution, which we hope the labour movement will consider favourably. This demonstrates and emphasises the importance of taking different stakeholders into confidence and opening to them a long-term window which enables them to appreciate the dynamics of the inherently cyclical nature of the mining industry.
As we stand here today, the chrome value-chain participants have led the path to proactively find and explore mechanisms ... [Interjections.]