Zhang Yan is the executive partner of Qinglan Financial Group. [Photo / China Daily]

Qinglan, which also has offices in Toronto and Hong Kong and whose biggest fund is the Blue Ocean Mining Investment Fund, is an increasingly dominant player in mining.

Zhang says his company's type of investment model is becoming increasingly the norm in the international mining sector and that it is no longer just about taking over mines and running them.

"In the international mining sector most of the investments are being done by institutional investors such as funds."

Africa not only has basic commodities such as iron ore and copper but also nuclear fuel.

China Guangdong Nuclear Power acquired the world's fourth largest supply of platinum when it bought the UK-listed Kalahari Minerals for $3.2 billion last year.

The company owned the Husab project mine in Namibia.

Wolfgang Yang, company secretary of Swakop Uranium, the subsidiary of the Guangdong company, said the mine - one of the largest ever investments in the country - was now in the construction phase.

"The uranium sector is a very closed field so everyone knows every major mine in the world and so when this one is discovered everyone was aware it was significant," he says.

Yang, now based in Namibia, says the company remains interested in investments elsewhere, not just in Africa.

"Africa has become a main region but we also look to central Asia, Canada, Australia and also central Europe," he says.

Li at Namibia East China Non-ferrous Metal Investments says it is wrong to see Chinese mining companies as simply grabbing resources and not putting anything back.

"What we are doing will have a transformative effect on the local economy, provide much needed infrastructure and also - most importantly of all - bring good skilled jobs to the local community," he says.

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