Directorate Mineral Economics has argued that despite the discovery of large reserves of minerals and metals in South Africa, scope exists for even more reserves to be found including platinum.

Its latest annual industry review 'South Africa's Mineral Industry 2003/4' explains that the country cannot be considered over-explored, Mining Weekly reports.

"Exploration success in South Africa has made substantial investments in exploration for gold, platinum, diamonds, heavy minerals and base metals," the review states.

"Experts in this field generally agree that there remains considerable potential for the discovery of other world-class deposits in areas that have not yet been exhaustively explored. There is, therefore, still ample potential for exploration programmes in certain areas."

Mining accounted for 7.1 per cent of the South African economy in 2003, which equates to around 78.5 billion rand.

This represents a decline in the proportion of the whole economy, which is due to the shrinking gold sector allied with growth in the secondary and tertiary sectors.