Govt sees strong mining comeback

The Philippine mining industry hopes to make a strong comeback next year with as much as two billion dollars in investments as the global financial slump eases, the government said on Wednesday.

Such an increase would nearly triple the amount of foreign and domestic investment projected for this year, the officials told a mining conference here.

“The interest is definitely there. The applications for investment are coming in,” Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Joselito Atienza said.

However, he conceded that the industry must become more competitive and work harder to curb domestic anti-mining sentiment, which flares particularly over environmental concerns.

Speaking at an industry conference, Atienza said the country could see $14-billion worth of mining investments from 2009 to 2014, with many projects already in the pipeline.

The director of the government’s Mines and Geosciences Bureau, Horacio Ramos, said it had targeted $2-billion worth of domestic and foreign investments in 2010 compared with $600 million projected for this year.

Investments in the promising mining industry fell from about $700 million in 2007 to $650 million in 2008, according to the bureau, due largely to the global crisis which caused financing for projects to dry up.

Ramos said that financing was becoming more available to mining companies amid rising metal prices and growing signs that the effects of the financial crisis were fading.

He said the government expected to approve four agreements with large foreign mining firms this year, covering investments worth more than $50 million each.
— AFP