ASEAN Must Improve Regulatory Regime In Mining Sector To Attract Investors

By Zarul Effendi Razali KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11 (Bernama) -- The ASEAN bloc should focus on improving its regulatory framework in both legal and investment aspect in the mining industry to attract world-class mining investors to the region. Senior Foreign Counsel of Christian Teo & Partners, Indonesia, Bill Sullivan, said ASEAN should tackle this as it was also crucial in retaining the existing companies in the region's mining industry. "World-class mining companies would not want to come to certain countries regardless of how good their mineral resources are unless there is a reliable legal investment environment," he said. "They say, even if it has the best resources in the world, why would we invest billions of dollars in this particular project if the legal and investment system is so poor, whereby our investment can be taken away from us at any point of time?." Sullivan, who was one of the speakers at the Fourth Private Sector Forum on Cooperation in Minerals in ASEAN, told Bernama this here, Thursday. The forum is held in conjunction with the three-day 11th Asia-Pacific Mineral Resource Exhibition and Conference 2016 which ends Friday. He claimed that in Indonesia and Myanmar, foreign investors had invested a lot in mining projects and then had their mining licences cancelled. "A country that focuses too much on quality of the mining resource and not giving much attention on the quality of the investment and legal regime, don't understand what drives the mining sector in the country." Sullivan said importance should be given to both the quality of resources, as well as mining environment to ensure it benefited both the people and country. Commenting on Malaysia, he said although the country had quality and sustainable mineral resources and better regulatory regime, it still has room for improvement to further attract foreign investors in the sector. He cited less participation of state-owned companies as one area. -- BERNAMA