Peru's Mining Society praise deal for new tax
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Lima, Aug. 26 (ANDINA). Peru's National Society for Mining, Petroleum and Energy (SNMPE), the country's largest resource sector industry group, on Thursday praised the deal that will allow the government to place a new windfall tax that could raise about three billion soles ($1.1 billion) a year.
Prime Minister Salomon Lerner said Thursday in an address in Congress that the new tax, worked out in talks with the mining sector, could add some 15 billion soles to the public coffers over the next five years.
"The mining companies have been working with the Peruvian state to reduce the levels of poverty in the nation and proof of this is the ratification of this obligation which took place taking into account technical issues," Mining Society President Pedro Martinez said in a statement.
According to a Wall Street Journal article, the estimated three billion soles a year is on top of the income tax that the companies pay, which the Mining Society said was valued at 38 billion soles in the 2006 to 2010 period.
"The compromise preserves the rule of law that has allowed growth in the nation in the last few years and which has maintained competitiveness in the mining sector. This will allow a portfolio worth about PEN30 billion in investments in the next five years to be viable," the Society was quoted as saying by the daily.
Peru is the world's largest producer of silver and a major producer of gold, copper, zinc, tin and other minerals.
