MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peru en route to become the world’s fifth gold producer

Jose Miguel Morales, president of the Gold Symposium in Lima

Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) said this week that the country would rank among the world’s top 5 gold producers before 2015 thanks to the production potential and increased investment in the sector.

“At present, Peru ranks sixth in world gold production, but is not that far away from the first places. Our production reached 182 metric tons (TM) last year, while the first place reached 300 TM”, Energy and Mines minister Pedro Sanchez indicated.

Then, depending on how investments are managed in the sector, it is expected that in some four years -no more than five- Peru will take an even more leading position in the world gold production ranking.

Currently global gold output totals 2,350 MT. China leads production with 300 MT (12.8%), followed by Australia with 220 (9.4%), South Africa with 210 MT (8.9%), United States with 210 MT (8.9%), Russia with 185 MT (7.9%) and Peru with 182 MT (7.7%).

The announcements were done during the opening session of the 9th International Gold Symposium, organized by the Gold Committee of Peru's National Mining, Petroleum and Energy Society (SNMPE) in Lima.

“This year mining projects, including gold, total investments of 14 billion USD, most of which have already completed an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) and are only waiting for their final approval”, revealed Sanchez.

Jose Miguel Morales head of the 9th International Gold Symposium said that mining has become the main engine of the Peruvian economy with exports in 2009 totalling 26.9 billion US dollars: “gold alone represents 6.8 billion and copper 5 billion”.

“Peru ranks sixth worldwide in gold production but third in exploration investments. Almost 400 million USD are spent each year in gold exploration and that could be even higher were it not because of the social conflicts that come with some of these projects”, added Morales.

He also pointed out that of the 6.9 billion in gold exports taxes take 1.5 billion, “half of it as royalties and the other half levies, plus all the activity mining generates including the higher salaries and benefits for workers”.