New ruling on tin export to be finalized mid-January: Official

The government is expected to finalize in the middle of January a revision of a ruling on tin export that would help curb rampant illegal mining activity, according to a senior government official.

Director general of geology and mineral resources Wimpie S. Tjejep said that the revision would treat tin as a strategic commodity whose trade must be ?supervised.?

He said that the Ministry of Trade and Industry decree No. 146/2001 would have to be revised because it was not in line with Mining Law No. 11/1976 which treated tin as a strategic commodity.

Efforts to curb rampant illegal tin mining had often been ineffective due the lack of supporting legal infrastructure.

The government had been considering to ban the export of tin sands to curb illegal mining activity.

The state-owned tin mining company PT Timah had been badly hit by the rampant illegal mining activity in the Bangka and Belitung islands, which might send the company into bankruptcy in the near future unless the illegal mining is curbed.

The government is also planning to turn coal into strategic commodities for a similar reason.(Godang)