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South Africa views BHP quote for Anglo as 'normal market activity'

South Africa views BHP Group's proposed bid for Anglo American as regular market activity and is following the procedure as it unfolds, President Cyril Ramaphosa's spokesperson said on Monday.

BHP is considering making an enhanced offer for Anglo American after its $39 billion initial proposition was declined by the London-listed miner, a source told last week.

It is still early days in terms of the proposition that BHP has submitted to Anglo, spokesperson Vincent Magwenya informed a. media rundown.

We will follow like everybody else the procedure as it. unfolds. We don't as a country head out of our method to block market. activity, Magwenya added.

BHP has till May 22 to make a binding bid. A deal, if. effective, would create the world's biggest miner of copper, a. metal central to the tidy energy shift.

A condition of the miner's proposal is that Anglo first. disperses to investors its stakes in Anglo American. Platinum (Amplats) and Kumba Iron Ore, both of. which run in South Africa.

Any exit by Anglo - established in South Africa in 1917 - would. be a financial blow to the nation, whose miners have been. cutting jobs and investment in action to weakening metals. prices and a variety of local difficulties worsened by the state. port and freight rail company.

BHP's quote comes weeks before a general election in which. voter anger about a stagnant economy and high joblessness could. cost the long-governing African National Congress its majority.

(source: Reuters)