Mining reactivation looks to take advantange of regional situation

The recent announcement of Bolivia's mining reactivation plan looks to take advantage of the feeling of legislative insecurity existing in some of the countries within the region, a Bolivian government official told BNamericas. Government sector policies unit director Heliodoro Sandi said the plan looks to take advantage of the situation in neighboring countries Peru, where a mining royalty was recently approved - and Chile, where a royalty bill has been voted down in congress for now but remains in the government's legislative plans. "That is the idea - in the area of direct taxes we are not changing anything. The only thing we will change is to support legal security through the royalty co-participation," he said. Of the current mining royalty payments received, the government is looking to steer more of those funds to the municipalities, the official said. Currently all of the income is targeted towards the department or the prefecture. "On the other hand, with indirect taxes such as value-added tax, we don't think we are very competitive - there are some obstacles which may discourage investors from developing new projects," Sandi added. Measures taken by the government aim to promote investment and encourage investors. "It is a very flexible fiscal regime to permit supporting a serious political institution, to create an atmosphere to attract higher investments in mining," he said. Last week, Bolivia's government announced a program aimed at attracting investments of US$1.23bn over the next three years.