Aussie investment firm sees mining investment to flow back in 2003

An Australian publicly listed resource investment company predicted on Tuesday that investment in mining would start to flow back to Indonesia from the second half of 2003, when constitutional issues relating to regional autonomy would have been resolved.

?It is anticipated that resource developments and investment in Indonesia will become matters for the regional governments, who will then vie with each other to attract international funding,? said Ewen Tyler, Lion Selection Group Limited chairman when addressing the company?s annual general meeting in Melbourne.

?Geologically speaking, the Indonesia archipelago is one of the great untapped sources of metal. It is an integral part of the "Pacific Rim of Fire", which extends from the resource rich areas of Chile and Peru, through North America, into Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. As a matter of strategy, it is deemed desirable to maintain a network in Indonesia,? he said.

Lion Selection has an investment of A$ 3.6 million in Indonesia by owning 15.6 percent shares of Austindo Resources Corporation NL, an Australian listed company whose major asset is its 70 percent joint venture interest in the Cibaliung gold project, a high grade epithermal gold vein system located approximately 150 kilometers south west of Jakarta. (alex)