Bolivia’s Vice Mining Minister, Luis Alberto Ichazu, said on Friday that the country aimed to raise taxes on mining companies rather than nationalise them.
The minister was commenting on earlier reports by Bolivia’s state-run ABI news agency on a speech by President Evo Morales in which he was quoted as planning to nationalise the mining industry this year.
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In a telephone interview with Bloomberg News, Ichazu said that the government’s plans did not include expropriation of private metals and mining assets, but that it did intend to increase taxes sharply. It was also expanding the activities of the state mining company Comibol though the development of new projects.
The target is to boost tax revenues from the metals sector five-fold to US$250 million through the introduction of a royalty system.
Metals including tin, zinc and silver brought in export earnings of over one billion dollars in 2006, a quarter of the country’s total export revenue.
