Gov?t to submit mining law draft to House in April

Director general of geology and mineral resources Wimpy S. Tjetjep said on Wednesday the government would submit new mining law draft to the House of Representative in the first week of April.

?We have completed interdepartmental discussion and the draft would be submitted to the state secretariat, which would then in turn submit it to the House of Representative,? said Wimpy.

Wimpy said the mining law draft might be passed in to law this year.

The mining law draft is aimed to replace the existing centralistic mining law, which does not come in line with the regional autonomy law.

Mining investment had been dwindling sharply in Indonesia in the past years due to soaring political and security risk, absence of legal certainty and shaky implementation of autonomy law.

An industry source contacted by Petromindo.Com said that the new and investor friendly mining law was needed to bring back investment to Indonesia. (godang)