Minister Shane Jones: New Zealand Mining is Open for Business
New Zealand wants the global investment and resources sector to know that it is open for business, Minister for Resources Shane Jones said at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention.
Speaking to the Investing News Network (INN), Jones outlined the work the country is doing to reinvigorate the minerals sector, highlighting the recently passed Fast-track Approvals Act 2024.
Signed into law before Christmas of last year, the fast-track approvals system is a streamlined process for New Zealand project applications that have the potential to assist in economic growth.
“The new Act helps cut through the thicket of red and green tape and the jumble of approvals processes that has, until now, held New Zealand back from much-needed economic growth,” said RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop on February 7, the day the fast-track program officially opened for applications.
“What we’ve done is clearly and unambiguously identified that the purpose of the fast-track legislation is economic development,” Jones said, adding that it also gives consideration to Indigenous people and local communities.
“But the overarching purpose … is economic development, because we want to take our country into a new epoch of wealth and prosperity, and we are no longer going to enable these trickle-riddled processes to hold projects to ransom.”
New Zealand’s mining history
Speaking about the history of mining in New Zealand, Jones said miners were originally attracted to gold.
As New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals explains, European settlers began arriving in New Zealand in large numbers after 1840, and they honed their efforts on gold, as well as coal, leading to gold rushes in the 1860s.
“By 1870 an impressive selection of metal ores had been discovered in New Zealand, but only three metals were successfully mined in 2005 – gold, silver and iron,” the organisation states.
Today, gold and coal collectively account for about 80 percent of New Zealand’s mineral exports, producing export revenues of about $1.2 billion in the year to June 2023.
Jones also mentioned New Zealand’s iron sands industry, calling it “Sahara in size.”
“Nowadays, we are putting a great accent on security, economic resilience, and we’re attracting and changing the law to make it a lot more feasible to extract and develop greater resilience through using our own resources and, quite frankly, our own natural endowment,” Jones furthered.
Today, key players in New Zealand’s mining industry include OceanaGold (TSX:OGC,OTCQX:OCANF), whose Macraes operation is said to be the country’s largest operating gold mine with over three decades of continuous output.
New Zealand’s new critical minerals list
Jones also discussed New Zealand’s new Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, announced January 31.
He highlighted the addition of gold and coal as…
Read More: Minister Shane Jones: New Zealand Mining is Open for Business