Govt studying plans to raise export duty on mineral ores
Tuesday, October 23 2012 - 01:35 AM WIB
Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said that the government was studying the possibility to increase export duty on mineral ores from the existing 20 percent in a bid to speed up the development of downstream business of mining products in Indonesia.
"If the development of downstream industry of mining products remains slow, the possibility is to raise (the export duty)," Agus told Petromindo.com at the parliament building.
"But there is no official discussion about it so far, it is still on level of study."
The government currently imposes 20 percent export duty against 65 unprocessed mining products following strong oppositions from miners on the plan to totally ban export of mineral ores by last June.
Miners are required to build smelter facility to process mineral ores before being exported in order to increase value added of mining products.
Editing by Adianto P. Simamora