The Ministry of Mine, Petroleum and Natural Gas announced that despite the price falls in gold and other minerals at international market, it has been actively exploring and exploiting strategic minerals such as iron, gold and potash and others.
In his recent interview with The Ethiopian Herald the Ministry Public Relations Department Head Bacha Fuji said using modern and artisan mining, the nation has been exporting gold “Two years ago, the sub-sector used to be the second foreign earning source next to coffee. But now investors are somehow reluctant to invest in the mining business mainly due to the collapse of mine price.”
On the other hand,iron has been preferred as strategic mineral since it plays a big role in transforming agricultural-led economy to industry-led one, he said.
As to him, potash is also other crucial mine and currently three foreign companies are engaged in exploring potash.
So far, a huge amount of potash have been found in the Afar State and It is expected to strengthen the nation foreign currency earning capacity in the near future, he noted.
As mining is the most capital intensive industry,it needs sophisticated and expensive machinery and well qualified human resource ,to attract investors the government has been putting in place infrastructure such as roads, energy and water on the top of permitting investors to import machinery free of tax, the head said.
Moreover, mining companies have no obligation to pay tax while they are at the exploration stage .They only require to pay tax at mining stage, he noted. ” Previously they were required to pay 35 percent of income tax but now it is reduced to 25 percent.”
As part of the development scheme, investors will make agreement with the government to provide the indigenous people job. Further more companies are expected to fulfill their social responsibilities through constructing schools, clinics and water sites to benefit the local people.
It was learnt that the mining sector had created 80,000 jobs during the last six months alone.