THE Government is out to lure big companies such as Rio Tinto to come into the country and carry out exploration and develop big mines. Mining Minister Sam Akoitai said this yesterday while explaining his trip to Rio headquarters in London on his way back to the country from the Prospectors and Developers’ Association of Canada conference last week. He said while the London meeting was positive, Bougainville was never a topic during the discussions. But he said Rio understood that there was a process going on at the moment to start the Bougainville Copper Agreement review. “I also spoke to Rio Tinto about the tax incentives that the Government is providing the mining industry,” Mr Akoitai said. “We also talked about the Government’s position on a good working relationship that we have enjoyed with the companies since we introduced the incentives.” He said since the incentives were introduced in the 2004 budget, 11 active drilling had got underway and some of the exploration programs were in advanced stages and construction programs would start soon. Mr Akoitai said this year’s PDAC conference saw 2000 potential investors passing through the PNG booth which was put up in conjunction with the Papua New Guinea Chamber of Commerce and Industry. But he said the country still had a lot of work to do in explaining how the Government dealt with landowners issues. ”I will present a paper to NEC (National Executive Council) and request that the Mineral Resources Development Company (MRDC) come up with a paper on how it manages landowner issues so that we can present these papers at such conferences,” he said. “But Papua New Guinea is well ahead of some countries in the world in dealing with landowner issues.” He also said the presentation of prospects on compact disc was an advantage as companies had the opportunity to see what deposits PNG had instead of going to the Department of Mining to have access to such information
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