Kazakhstan is planning to adopt a new Code on mineral resources till 2017 which allows gold mining for natural persons and eases procedure of obtaining licenses for enterprises, Timur Toktabaev, Director of Subsurface Resources Management Department of Ministry of Development and Investments of the Republic of Kazakhstan, says. The concept bill has already been approved, and the project is under discussion and reconciliation; in November of the current year it will be presented to Mazhilis (local parliament). “Any natural person will be able to obtain a subsurface resources management license”, Timur Toktabaev says to local media. According to Albert Rau, Vice Minister of Development and Investments of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the new Code will ease the procedures of obtaining licenses at maximum grounding on the Australian “first come, first served” method. This scheme has been tested since November of the last year at the experimental 10-kilometers plot in the area of Stepnogorsk monotown for which the according amendments were made in the current law “On mineral resources”. As a result, for the first quarter of 2016, 10 new resources management contracts have been concluded. In addition to Stepnogorsk area, the subsurface rights will be granted under simplified procedure also in the region of Arkalyk town (in Kostanay Region) and in East Kazakhstan Region. “We hope that the new Code will be adopted simultaneously with the electronic map of Kazakhstan where all underexplored sites will be marked”, Vice Minister said. This interactive map will not only allow the user to get geological information, but also obtain subsurface rights online. At that the time limit of such grant will be reduced to 3 days by 2017 (18 months in 2014, 25 days in 2015), Kursiv informs. Aset Isekeshev, minister of development and investments of the Republic of Kazakhstan, concludes that such measures can attract brand new companies to Kazakhstan whose share of world solid minerals discoveries is 50 %. The ministry thinks that Kazakhstan has a real prospect to discover dozens of new fields by 2020. At the moment, the area of the prospect investment mineral resources sites is 41.8% of the total area of the country, whereas the area of solid minerals management under current contracts is 5.1%. Azamat Shalabaev, Deputy Director of Subsurface Resources Management Department, thinks that the new Code will cancel all bonuses and tax payments for users of subsurface resources and establish a rental fee.
Sourсe: Gold Mining Manufacturers' Reporter gold.1prime.ru