Economy

Markets

Industries

Insights

Reports

Events

Beef up mining efforts: Report

By Wang Qian (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-25 07:46

China should step up efforts to mine its mineral and natural resources to meet the growing demand in light of plunging investment caused by the economic slowdown this year, the China Geological Survey (CGS) said in a report yesterday.

Related readings:  Mining safety stumbles  Survey on mining dumps to be completed in a month

"With the global financial crisis, most companies are becoming cautious of investing in the sector, but with domestic demand increasing in the long term, we are under great pressure this year," Wang Min, vice-minister of land and resources, told a national geological survey conference in Beijing yesterday.

With the price of iron ore plunging by one-quarter over last year, most mining companies are cutting their budgets for mine exploration, Xu Hanjing, executive director of China business development with Sino Gold Mining Ltd, told China Daily yesterday.

But considering the vast metal reserves in the country like those in the Brahmaputra River, as well as a series of measures to expand domestic demand since the end of last year, the search for domestic metal reserves is still on top of this year's agenda, Wang said.

The GCS released the results of the nine-year survey to gauge the available resources in the country.

From 1999 to 2007, a total of 3,795 exploration programs were carried out, with 7.56 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) invested and about 184 companies and bureaus of land and resources involved, Wang said.

The agency found more than 1,200 potential mining sites including 20 medium and large ones.

In Benxi, Liaoning province, a mine with a potential iron reserves of about 1.7 billion tons was discovered while another mine in Anhui province was found to have 110 million tons of iron and 30 million tons of sulfurous iron ore, the report said.

"This year, we should deepen international cooperation in mineral surveying and exploitation, such as participation in annual conferences like the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and Society of Exploration Geophysicists, to keep pace with the international metal market," Wang said.

Last August, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Land and Resources also accelerated the opening of its mineral sector to foreign investors to enhance international cooperation in the field.