LatinNews Daily Report - 31 January 2013

MINING | Congress begins reviewing Barrick contract. On 30 January the Dominican Republic (DR)’s chamber of deputies announced that it had began the process of reviewing the mining exploitation contract signed by the government and Canadian mining firms, Barrick Gold and Goldcorp.  The Canadian consortium acquired the former state-owned ‘Pueblo Viejo’ gold mine in 2005 when it agreed to clean up the previous spill caused by the mine and invest US$3.5bn to make it productive again. Since then Barrick Gold began working on cleaning up the mine. As the start of production date neared, the DR’s Senate reviewed the contract, amending it slightly in 2009. The changes introduced established that once Barrick had recovered its initial investment plus a 10% return on it then it would start paying a 25% income tax plus a 28.67% utilities tax. Last year Barrick announced that it had already begun safely extracting gold from the mine and that commercial production would begin soon. However, this sparked protests by local residents who maintain that the company has failed to keep its promise of jobs for local people. There is speculation that the lower chamber may seek to address some of these concerns.

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