The USD 620 bn Africa sends abroad

Mining contributes only about 0.5% of GDP (2023), and Eswatini is not a raw-ore powerhouse, but it holds two notable subsurface assets. Maloma Colliery has produced anthracite since 1992/93; output rose about 52% to a record 327,682 metric tons in 2023, on proven reserves cited at roughly 19 million saleable tonnes, historically exported entirely to South Africa but now reported to reach Vietnam, Poland and Finland, with industry sources describing Eswatini as Africa's leading anthracite producer (a Tier-2 claim not independently confirmed by USGS). The Ngwenya iron-ore mine — claimed to be the world's oldest — is dormant for primary mining: the remaining lease resource is about 96 million tonnes at 46.5% Fe, with roughly 28 million tonnes of stockpiled slimes at 43.7% Fe and a total national resource estimated at about 618 million tonnes at 36% Fe, and recent activity is confined to tailings reprocessing. Diamonds at Dvokolwako, gold in the Piggs Peak area, kaolin and silica are minor or dormant, and the Bulembu/Havelock asbestos mine has been closed since around 2001. The beneficiation reality is stark: minerals are exported essentially raw, with no domestic smelting, refining or steelmaking, so the country holds genuine iron-ore resource but processes none of it.

On energy the position is tight and defining. Eswatini has no oil or gas and only about 70 to 76.5 MW of domestic installed generation — 69.6 MW total, of which 60.1 MW is hydropower (Africa Energy Portal) — against peak demand of roughly 236 MW, which rose from 221 MW in 2014. It imports approximately 70% of its electricity from South Africa's Eskom, with the IMF 2025 Article IV putting reliance at 70 to 80% from South Africa and Mozambique. State utility EEC operates four hydro plants totalling about 60.4 MW (Edwaleni, Maguga, Ezulwini and Maguduza) plus the 10 MW Lavumisa solar PV plant. The sugar mills add significant bagasse cogeneration — Ubombo at about 40 MW installed (roughly 165 GWh a year, of which about 60 GWh is sold to the grid) and RES Corp at about 65.5 MW. Energy import-dependence is the central constraint on any heavy or energy-intensive manufacturing.

Agriculture, forestry and food processing carry the economy. Eswatini is Africa's fourth-largest sugar producer and the twenty-fifth-largest worldwide, contributing about USD 285 million a year, with national output of roughly 670,000 tonnes in a normal season; USDA FAS forecast 652,057 MT for MY2023/24 (up 4% on improved cane deliveries and recovery rate) and about 660,000 MT for MY2025/26, on cane of about 5.6 million MT across roughly 57,000 to 60,800 hectares. Royal Eswatini Sugar Corp runs the Mhlume and Simunye mills (780 t/hr), producing over 430,000 t plus a Mhlume refinery (170,000 t refined) and a 32-million-litre ethanol plant, while Ubombo Sugar (Illovo/ABF, 60%) produces about 250,000 to 260,000 t, all marketed through the Eswatini Sugar Association. The country hosts what an industry processor describes as the largest citrus (grapefruit) canning operation in the world, plus about 50,000 t a year of pineapple processing for UK and EU supermarkets. In forestry, Swazi-owned Montigny Investments manages about 80,000 ha (55,000 ha under active management), processes over 1 million tons of timber a year and value-adds around 70% across sawmills, a chipboard plant, an essential-oil plant and pole manufacturing, with sawn coniferous wood exports of about USD 80 million a year; the Usutu pulp mill closed in 2010 after the 2007/08 fires, so Eswatini no longer produces wood pulp. Eswatini Meat Industries is the only licensed beef exporter and holds EU Economic Partnership Agreement quota access but exports well below quota, while cotton feeds a revitalising domestic textile chain and maize remains a net import.

Eswatini's industrial base is anomalously deep for its size. Manufacturing value added was 27.64% of GDP in 2023 (World Bank) — the highest manufacturing intensity in Africa and the only low-middle-income African country above UNIDO's 20% threshold, though this is intensity rather than absolute scale. The Coca-Cola Conco concentrate plant at Matsapha/Mahlanya has produced soft-drink concentrate and supplied sixty bottling companies across 20 African countries since 1987, is the single largest export earner, and falls under HS 3302; a 2008 USAID report estimated that about 35% of national foreign-exchange earnings came from Coca-Cola's operations, though output and destinations are commercially secret. Around it sit sugar refining and ethanol, AGOA-linked textiles and garments with Taiwanese investment supporting some 15,000 to 17,000 jobs, wood products, Eswatini Paper Mills and Eswatini Beverages, clustered mainly at Matsapha Industrial Estate alongside the Royal Science & Technology Park and the SEZ regime under the 2018 SEZ Act. Human capital is thin: the labour force is small against a population of about 1.2 million, youth unemployment among 15 to 24 year-olds reached 56% in 2023 (the IMF cites 58%), the Human Capital Index of 134 sits above the Sub-Saharan average of 127 but below the lower-middle-income average of 153, and the SEZ wage threshold is around USD 330 a month. Logistically the country is landlocked and transit-dependent through South African ports (Durban, Richards Bay) and Mozambique's Maputo, served by Eswatini Railways via the Goba line to Maputo and the Richards Bay/Durban network; membership of SACU and the rand-pegged Common Monetary Area (lilangeni at 1:1 with the rand) gives frictionless trade and proximity to South Africa's industrial heartland, even as Conco's own experience shows the flip side of poor regional roads and inconsistent customs.