Platinum and palladium would rise on concern about implementing changes to mining rules in South Africa, Ian Henderson, a fund manager specialising in natural resource assets at JPMorgan Chase, said yesterday.

"We have been long on platinum for a long time," he said.

Concern about rule changes intensified in recent weeks as Kumba Iron Ore and Lonmin said the government had deprived them of mining rights.

The ANC is preparing to discuss mine nationalisation at a congress next month. South Africa is the world's largest platinum producer.

"My anxiety is the South African politics," Henderson said yesterday. "The news that came out recently has been unfriendly to mines and confusing to investors."

The government has upheld its award of some prospecting rights at a mine of Anglo American's Kumba Iron Ore unit to a company whose biggest shareholder has been in business with the son of President Jacob Zuma.

Lonmin in May lost prospecting rights for some metals to a company led by a former government official who once sat on its board.

South Africa is struggling to draw foreign capital as investment costs rise because of laws aimed at redressing the inequalities of apartheid that compel the sale of stakes in mines to black South Africans. Full Article