Govt extends duration of mining export permit

Beginning January this year, the government will extend the duration of a mining export permit to one year from three months previously in order to ease administration process, a senior official at the energy and mineral resources ministry said as quoted by Investor Daily.

Thamrin Sihite, Director General of Mineral and Coal at the energy ministry, said in Jakarta on Wednesday that his office would review the mining export permit every three months to ensure it was used by the mining firm.

In order to be able to obtain export permit, a miner should be able to prove that it has owned a mining permit and has paid royalty. They should also show that they have concrete programs in establishing smelting facilities for their mineral production.

The company would be given export quota in accordance with their export annual work plans and budget, Thamrin said.

The government issued a regulation early last year requiring mining companies to obtain export permit to prevent over-exploitation of mining resources ahead of the government?s plan to ban export of unprocessed minerals in 2014. The mining companies are also required to pay export tax.

Thamrin earlier said that his office would establish a special team to investigate alleged misuse of mineral export permits by non mining companies. He said that his office had found that some companies which were not involved in mining activities had obtained the export permits.

He suspected said that these companies bought the permits from inactive companies. (*)