Yahoo News 28 Nov 07;
Concern is growing in China that rapid investment in mines, spurred by a global spike in metal prices, will have devastating environmental consequences, state media said Wednesday.
The ecological damage is particularly acute in small mines, the Beijing Business Today newspaper reported.
This is because of "reckless and disordered" digging, and low market entry barriers, meaning even companies with backward technology and poor management are allowed to set up shop, it said.
An official at the ministry of land and resources told AFP the ecological damage was mostly in the form of soil erosion.
The government will tighten supervision on key mining zones in areas such as the Xinjiang region in the northwest and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangze River to curb the investment, it added.
Other measures include plans to triple the resource tax on coal mining companies to 3 percent, said the China Business News on Wednesday. It did not say when the tax would take effect.
Experts from the land and resources ministry estimated that investment into the mining industry has reached tens of billions of dollars, encouraged by rising international metal prices, the Beijing Business Today said.
For example, the cost of nickel, used to produce stainless steel, has tripled in the past year to more than 50,000 dollars a tonne, with the prices of copper, lead, tin and zinc near record highs as well.
