http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=50200

An international mining conference in the Philippines next month has been postponed, the local industry association said Tuesday, amid reported concerns over government policies on exploiting the country’s vast mineral resources.

The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines announced on its website that the October 3 to 5 meeting had been postponed until next year, with the date “to be announced later.”
The statement gave no reason for the postponement.

Mining executives here had planned to use the Manila meeting to make foreign investors more aware of the country’s untapped resources sector, said to be worth in excess of one trillion dollars.

Meanwhile, Manila newspapers on Tuesday quoted a Chamber of Mines letter to President Arroyo which said the meeting was postponed in order to shield the administration from “operational and governance issues that will inevitably surface in an international conference and could reverberate to the global mining community.”

In the August 29 letter, Chamber president Benjamin Philip Romualdez noted a policy shift on mining, referring to a government decision to offer only 24 permits on priority projects rather than open up the industry in full, as had been approved by the Supreme Court.

This “has led mining companies to believe and confirm their early suspicions that investment policies in the Philippines are not stable and are heightened by high political risks,” Romualdez said.

“This has led to stymied investment inflows affecting the country’s competitiveness as a mining destination, and a wait-and-see attitude once again from our foreign investors,” he added.
The Supreme Court last year ended a seven-year legal dispute over the constitutionality of the country’s Mining Act by ruling that foreign investors were freely allowed into the industry.

That move had been, and continues to be opposed by some very influential groups, including some in the church, who argue that foreign mining companies will despoil the country and strip it of its mineral resources without giving a fair return.

It was to head off such opposition that the government, after pressing for the Supreme Court ruling, decided to allow only 24 permits, effectively limiting the scope of foreign investment.
The Chamber of Mines also noted moves by some sections of Congress to repeal the mining act which increased permitted foreign ownership of local mining companies from 40 to 100 percent. AFP