Ministry issued eight new mining licenses RIYADH: Investment interest in Saudi mining has skyrocketed this year 2021, Khalid Al-Mudaifer, vice minister for mining affairs at the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources (MIM) told Arab news, on the sidelines of the FII summit. “We have issued eight new mining licenses; it is a big project-a multibillion dollar project,” he said in an interview. The mining law is an investment law so “it has to be competitive for people because investors have the choice to come here or go to another jurisdiction,” he said. “We made sure that Saudi Arabia is the world’s best, with the lowest mining tax in the world, because we want development, we want the long-term benefit of mining,” he said. “If you do more value addition, more manufacturing in Saudi Arabia, you get a discount in royalties up to 90 percent.” “We have received since the nine months up to September more applications that in the 20 years that has passed,” Al-Mudaifer told Arab News. We also have issued, by now, 133 local exploration licenses, and there are applications for international exploration that are under processing, he said. “That is a big percentage because this is almost 25 percent, a quarter of what we have done in 20 years,” Al-Mudaifer said. In January this year, the Kingdom moved to capitalize on the vast wealth hidden below ground in Saudi Arabia with the establishment of a mining fund and support for geological surveys and exploration program activities. Under Vision 2030, mining is the third pillar of Saudi Arabia’s economic development, after energy and petrochemicals, as it aims to diversify the country’s economy away from dependency on oil. The National Geological Database is being created to allow investors to find the locations of mineral deposits in a bid to increase the transparency and competitiveness of the sector in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom has already attracted major international investors, including US firm Alcoa Corp., which has a 25.1 percent stake in Ma’aden Bauxite and Alumina Co., and Ma’aden Aluminium Co., as part of $10.8 billion joint venture with Saudi miner Ma’aden, located in Ras Al-Khair Industrial City in the eastern province. Fertilizer producer The Mosaic Co., another US company, has a 25 percent stake in the $8 billion Ma’aden Wa’ad Al-Shamal Fertilizer Production Complex located in Wa’ad Al-Shamal Minerals Industrial City in the northern province of Saud Arabia. The mining sector is expected to create thousands of jobs in the Kingdom in the coming years with the goal of 256,000 geologists, engineers and others by 2030.
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