President assures there won?t be relaxation of mineral ores export ban

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has assured that the government would not relax the current mineral ores export ban to help encourage the development of more domestic smelters, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Saturday.

This was said by Head of the National Industry Economic Committee (KEIN) Soetrisno Bachir following a meeting Friday with Jokowi.

The meeting came after KEIN previously met with the Indonesian Smelter and Refinery Industry Association (AP3I), which had expressed concern over the negative impact to the development of domestic smelters if the current mineral ores export ban policy is relaxed. AP3I has warned that planned domestic smelter projects would be canceled if the government relaxes the mineral ores export ban.

There had been speculation in recent months that the government was planning to relax the mineral ores export ban policy as some miners have faced difficulties in getting funds to finance the development of their smelter projects. The planned relaxation was said to be made through the revision of the 2009 Mining Law.

The previous administration introduced the mineral ores export ban policy in early 2014 in a bid to push miners to develop domestic smelters to help generate greater value from the country?s mineral ores as mandated by the mining law. But progress of the domestic mineral projects have been moving at a snail?s pace due to various problems including difficulties to raise funds particularly amid the current mining downturn, except for the development of nickel smelters. (*)