Business group urges win-win solution to mining issues By...

Business group urges win-win solution to mining issues
By Abigail L. Ho
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 19:25:00 02/16/2011

Filed Under: Mining and quarrying, Employment, Earnings, business, Government
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MANILA, Philippines?The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry is urging local government units, mining companies and other stakeholders to engage in ?objective and rational discussions? concerning open-pit mining as the outright ban on such activities would cost the country thousands in jobs and billions of pesos in investments.

The business group noted that the mining sector was one of the country?s biggest growth drivers, with estimated 2010 gross domestic product contribution placed at around P110 billion.

The number of jobs generated in the mining and quarrying sector also reached more than 200,000 last year.

?Tapping our mineral resource provides unprecedented opportunity that can potentially spur infrastructure development and investments in the regions,? PCCI vice president for industry and Chamber of Mines of the Philippines president Benjamin Philip Romualdez said in a statement issued Wednesday.

?The Tampakan project, representing the biggest investment yet in the country, is also a case study on the stability of national policies, which is one of the high and critical items considered by investors, both local and foreign, before investing.?

The South Cotabato provincial government?s ordinance banning open-pit mining in the province places on shaky ground the $6-billion Tampakan copper-gold project.

PCCI vice president for Mindanao Edwin Capili noted that the Tampakan project could provide up to 9,000 jobs during construction and another 2,000 jobs during actual operations. Over 20 years, the project could contribute as much as $5.1 billion to the national coffers by way of taxes.

Documents from Sagittarius Mines Inc., the project?s proponent, showed that the Tampakan project area had the potential to produce 13.5 million tons of copper and 15.8 million ounces of gold.

The South Cotabato ordinance runs counter to the Philippine Mining Act.

PCCI president Francis Chua said that since such provincial laws placed at risk billions of pesos in investments and thousands of jobs, there was a need to properly educate local governments and other stakeholders on mining technologies, to make them understand, and eventually accept, the industry.