Philippines sees over $400 mln yearly tax bonanza from mining
The Philippines can boost tax receipts from mining by more than $400 million annually if stalled projects take off in five years, the government said on Monday, following its landmark move to lift a moratorium on new contracts.
President Rodrigo Duterte, who once said the country could
survive without mining, signed an executive order last week lifting a nine-year
ban on new mining deals to boost state coffers.
More than 30 priority projects can now proceed to
development stage, including big-ticket ones like the $1.1 billion Silangan
copper-gold mine of Philex Mining Corp PX.PS, said Wilfredo Moncano, the
director of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB).
Several Chinese mining companies had expressed interest in
investing in Silangan in southern Surigao del Norte province, according to
Philex.
The government can generate additional tax revenue annually
of 21 billion pesos ($434 million) from priority projects alone, Moncano said.
"This will be generated after the development and
construction period that may take one to five years, depending on the size of
the projects," he told Reuters.
The still largely-unexplored Philippines is the biggest
nickel ore supplier to top metals consumer China and also has substantial
copper and gold reserves, but mining contributes less than 1% to the overall
economy.
The project pipeline also includes the $5.9 billion Tampakan
gold-copper mine development also in the south, the Philippines' biggest
stalled project.
Tampakan failed to take off after the provincial government
banned open-pit mining in 2010, prompting commodities giant Glencore to quit
the project in 2015.
The environment ministry has under a previous leadership
imposed a nationwide ban on open-pit mining, which Duterte has upheld, adding
to policy issues hampering Tampakan.
The MGB has asked Duterte to lift the nationwide ban, but
Moncano said a presidential action may not be necessary since the measure was
imposed via an administrative order that can be repealed by a subsequent
administrative order.
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