Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book briefly sketches some of the more striking features of the major mineral industries exporting in significant quantities from less developed countries (LDCs). It discusses explicitly the problem of how to view the governments of ldc’s. The book explores the special features of mining industries arising from the nonrenewable and therefore exhaustible nature of mineral resources. It discusses the relationships between the Botswana government and the companies that are mining Botswana’s nickel, copper, and diamonds. The book examines the relationships between the Zambian government and the two copper companies that have mined most of Zambia’s copper. There is an important subset of all ldc’s in which the exploitation of nonrenewable resources is a very substantial contributor to export receipts government revenue, and employment.