This study sets out to evaluate the impact of natural resources on local economies, within the context of a developing country with a strict procurement policy on its extractive industry. Using ward level data combined with firm data, the study essentially uses a difference-in-differences estimation procedure, by exploiting local input demand shock from large industrial mines, as well as distance from a mine, as sources of variation. The main finding of this paper is that industrial mining, when governed by procurement policy that favours the hosting communities, can improve the local living standards. This finding remains robust to different indicators of mine expansion, and checks for alternative explanations such as selective migration. It uses the Limpopo province of South Africa as a fitting case study.