PUTRAJAYA, May 1 (NNN-Bernama) — The government is planning to revive the tin mining industry in Malaysia back to its golden age as achieved decades ago when the country was the largest tin producer in the world.
Water, Land and Natural Resources Minister Dr A. Xavier Jayakumar said the deposits of tin in this country are huge as there has been no mining of the ore for the past 40 years.
He said the price of tin which could reach up to USD$20,000/tonne today is very ‘attractive’ to the industry players and with deposits amounting to millions of tonnes, it could again be a money spinner.
“And because of that there is more interest in tin and our Department of Lands and Mines has now mapped the whole country where there is huge tin deposits found and so the industry players are now interested in coming back, doing tin mining.
“We have discussed this in the Cabinet and decided that we will go into tin mining again and to give opportunities to the interested parties in order to go forward with the mining of tin,” he told reporters at a media conference in conjunction with PH’s first year in government last Monday.
According to Xavier, in recent years, although the tin mining industry was not completely halted but was not on the scale as it was in 1960. Presently only Rahman Hydraulic Sdn Bhd in Perak is only company that has been mining tin in a big way.
Meanwhile, as for bauxite mining, he said that the preparation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on bauxite mining and exporting, paves way to a better and sustainable activity and minimising the mining impact on local inhabitants.
“Bauxite issues have been completely discussed with the state ( Pahang), we came up with the SOPs together with the state agency sitting in the committee with us, and we have agreed to the SOPs, both state and federal…and therefore we want to make sure that the SOPs are adhered-to in order to make this industry a success,” he said.
Xavier, however, asserted that in efforts to bolster the industry, the government is committed to ensuring that it is developed sustainably without negatively impacting the environment.
-NNN-BERNAMA