Chen Jinghe

Chen Jinghe chairs Zijin Mining, having built the company from a small county-owned gold mine in Fujian province into China's largest gold producer and one of the world's top five copper producers. Chen's aggressive international acquisition strategy has been transformative: major deals include the Kamoa-Kakula copper mine in the DRC (one of the world's largest and highest-grade undeveloped copper deposits, jointly developed with Ivanhoe Mines), the Timok copper-gold mine in Serbia, the Buriticá gold mine in Colombia, and numerous other assets across Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. Zijin's portfolio is diversified across gold, copper, zinc, silver, and lithium — with copper becoming the primary growth driver. The energy transition requires enormous amounts of copper (for electric vehicles, renewable energy, grid infrastructure), and Zijin's low-cost copper production growth positions it well for this structural demand increase. Zijin stands out among Chinese mining companies for its international footprint and M&A expertise. Key stock drivers include gold and copper prices, production growth across key mines (particularly Kamoa-Kakula ramp-up), new acquisition pipeline, operating costs and mine grades, geopolitical risks in operating jurisdictions (DRC, Serbia), lithium project development, Chinese economic activity driving metals demand, and the energy transition copper demand thesis.