JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's government will endorse a new mining charter next month to increase black ownership in the sector after the previous agreement failed to do so, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu said on Monday.

Shabangu said she had received sufficient feedback from mining sector players in the first major review of the country's Mining Charter -- an agreement requiring mining companies to sell a portion of their ownership to black people, to reverse decades of exclusion under white apartheid rule.

She said so far the current charter had been a "disappointment", because not much had been achieved in its aim of de-racialising the mining industry in Africa's largest economy, and the top platinum and major gold producer.

"So far it (transformation) has been a disappointment," she told Reuters.

"The changes to the charter have not fundamentally shifted the goal posts, but aim to enhance compliance with black economic empowerment. We have set no new targets."

She said all feedback from mining companies would be in by the end of April, but declined to give details, saying these would be disclosed once the charter is endorsed by the cabinet.

"(In) early May, the cabinet will endorse the changes and it will strengthen this tool of transformation," Shabangu said.

She spoke at a function at the Wits University in Johannesburg where gold miner Gold Fields said it would spend 26 million rand over three years in the mining engineering faculties to help fight skills shortages.

When she took charge last year, Shabangu said her first task would be overseeing the review of the charter, which oversees the mining industry -- a key pillar of the economy and a major employer.

Analysts have said the revised charter will seek to plug loopholes that have allowed the marginalisation of black people in the mining sector to continue, five years after the agreement to transform ownership was signed.

BLACK OWNERSHIP

The charter set a target to transfer 26 percent of ownership to black people by 2014, and the review was prompted by concerns that this target may not be met.

The revised charter will seek to speed up black ownership, skills development, employment equity, procurement, housing and living conditions, and mining beneficiation, Shabangu said.

The slow pace of transformation in the industry is seen as fuelling demands by the ruling party's youth wing to nationalise mining companies, analysts said.

Media reports say about 10 percent of the industry was in black hands last year, far from the 15 percent target set by the mining charter.

Shabangu declined to comment on these reports.

Mining companies have said they hope there will not be major changes, which could affect their operations and costs.

Shabangu said the mining department had finalised an inventory of all mineral resources still under state control and would present these findings to the government, which would next month decide whether to keep all the assets or sell some.

Shabangu said rather than grabbing mines, the country would run a state-owned firm focused on strategic minerals such as coal and uranium, which were required for power generation.