(Ecofin Agency) - South Africa’s mining output has dropped by 18% in Q1 2016 compared to Q1 2015, statistics from Stats SA (South African Statistics office) reveals.

Poorest performances come from platinum-metals group and coal which were down 4.55 and 4 percentage points, respectively. Outputs for iron-ore and gold respectively decreased by 1.6 and 1.2 percentage points.

“A weak and somewhat uncertain outlook for global commodity prices coupled with suppressed demand and faltering primary sector profitability all continued to weigh on South Africa’s mining sector in the first quarter of this year,” said Jeffrey Schultz, economist at BNP Paribas Securities

Holding various types of ores, in abundance, South Africa is quite rich in base resources. It is Africa’s leading gold and platinum producer as well as one of the world’s leading diamond and silver producers. The nation also holds large deposits of vanadium, chromium (65% of global reserves), manganese, fluorine, iron, uranium, zinc, antimony, copper, coal and tungsten.