Provincial regulations confuse mining investors: Purnomo

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro has complained about provincial and regency administrations issuing regulations contradictory to central government policies on mining, Bisnis Indonesia daily reported Monday.

The ministers said that such regulations had confused mining investors.

?Current regional autonomy laws are meant to get the regions actively involved in national development. Unfortunately, they have manipulated the laws to issue regulations which contradict central government policies,? Bisnis Indonesia quoted Purnomo as saying over the weekend.

He said mining investors had also complained about other issues including fiscal policies, illegal mining, security in mining areas, overlapping of mining policies and the restructuring of the mining sector.

With regards to fiscal policies, Purnomo said that miners had complained about the government?s decision to impose tax on mining products. The products had been exempted from taxes for quite sometime.

The official said that Indonesia must improve its investment climate so as to attract new investors into the country, saying that there had not been new investment in the mining sector over the past four years. (*)