
{"id":170,"date":"2026-07-29T06:50:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/?p=170"},"modified":"2026-07-29T06:51:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:51:52","slug":"rukweza-appointed-lithium-association-of-zimbabwe-chair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/rukweza-appointed-lithium-association-of-zimbabwe-chair\/","title":{"rendered":"Rukweza appointed Lithium Association of Zimbabwe chair\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">MUTAPA Energy Resources (MER) chief executive officer Innocent Rukweza has been appointed chairman of the Lithium Association of Zimbabwe (LAZ), a development that comes as the country seeks to strengthen its position as a major player in the global battery minerals industry.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He takes over from Xuedong Gong, managing director of Bikita Minerals.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a congratulatory message on Tuesday, the board, management and staff of MER described the appointment as a significant achievement and expressed confidence in Rukweza&#8217;s leadership.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We are proud of this remarkable achievement and wish you every success in your new role as you lead and advance the growth of Zimbabwe&#8217;s lithium industry,&#8221; the company said.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The LAZ represents stakeholders in one of the country&#8217;s fastest-growing mining sectors. Zimbabwe is home to some of Africa&#8217;s largest lithium deposits and has attracted substantial investment in recent years as global demand for minerals used in electric vehicle batteries and energy storage systems continues to rise.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rukweza takes up the position at a time when the government is pushing for increased beneficiation and value addition in the lithium sector to maximise economic returns from the country&#8217;s mineral resources.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">MER is part of Mutapa Investment Fund, the country&#8217;s sovereign wealth fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MUTAPA Energy Resources (MER) chief executive officer Innocent Rukweza has been appointed chairman of the Lithium Association of Zimbabwe (LAZ), a development that comes as the country seeks to strengthen its position as a major player in the global battery minerals industry.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; He takes over from Xuedong Gong, managing director of Bikita Minerals.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172,"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions\/172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/139.84.241.235\/mer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}