Government plans to ease mineral export policy
Tuesday, January 13 2015 - 12:53 AM WIB
The paper quoted Dede I. Suhendra, Head of Research and Development for Coal and Mineral Technology at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, as saying there are five type minerals to benefit from the planned new policy.
First, the government will include proppant, a final output of bauxite processing which has a minimum Al content of 78 percent, into the list of bauxite products that can be exported. As such, there will four final output of bauxite that can be exported. The move comes amid strong demand for proppant in the US, the paper said.
Secondly, the name of iron ore concentrate will be change into iron concentrate to avoid the product from being slapped with high export benchmark price by the Ministry of Trade.
Third, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources will also change the name of zirconium sands by including hafnium to allow the export of zirconium. And finally, the government will also reduce the purity level of bentonite and copper telluride to allow them for export.
As earlier reported, the government plans to revise the appendix in the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Regulation No 1/2014, easing the export requirements of certain mineral products.
Dede, however, said that the government remains committed to the efforts to push the development of mineral downstream industry, stressing that iron ores remain banned from export. The government in January of 2014 introduced a policy banning the export of mineral ores to encourage miners to build domestic smelter to generate greater value added from mineral commodities.
Dede also denied suggestion that the planned new policy was aimed to help meet the 2015 non-tax revenue of Rp 50 trillion, which is higher than Rp 34 trillion set in 2014. (*)