How Can Guinea Tap Into Its $200 Billion Resources?

Despite the slowdown in the Chinese economy and the resulting slump in commodity prices, a consortium of Chinese, Singaporean, and Guinean companies are due to ramp up bauxite ore mining in the West African country of Guinea from 10 to 15 million tons this year, before reaching 30 million tons in 2017.

A technician checks operations at Guinea's largest bauxite mining firm, Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG), at Kamsar, a town north of the capital Conakry, on Oct. 23, 2008. Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty Images

Despite the slowdown in the Chinese economy and the resulting slump in commodity prices, a consortium of Chinese, Singaporean, and Guinean companies are due to ramp up bauxite ore mining in the West African country of Guinea from 10 to 15 million tons this year, before reaching 30 million tons in 2017.

Guinea boasts the largest undeveloped high-grade iron ore deposits in the world and some $222 billion worth of bauxite. Bauxite is a primary source for production of aluminum—a metal so ubiquitous in modern manufacturing that it is found in everything from bottle caps to aircraft carriers.

As a result of profits from mining, Guinea’s infrastructure has seen a great boost. But every silver lining has its cloud, and in the case of bauxite mining that cloud is a radioactive miasma of arsenic, mercury, and uranium.

The harbour of Conakry, the capital and largest city of Guinea, on Sept. 24, 2013. Guinea is the world's largest producer of bauxite, which is used to make aluminium. The country also has all manner of untapped minerals, including diamonds, gold, cooper, uranium, and one of the planet's richest deposits of undeveloped iron ore. Yet it remains one of the poorest nations in West Africa, with more than 50 percent of its 11 millions inhabitants living under the poverty line. Cellou Binani/AFP/Getty Images