Astana, Kazakhstan, Nov.7
By Daniyar Mukhtarov - Trend: The Australian-British Rio Tinto consortium will invest about two billion tenge (153.77 = $1) in geological exploration in Kazakhstan in the first stage, Deputy Minister of Industry and New Technologies of Kazakhstan Asset Issekeshev said on Nov.7.
"By the year-end we will have four agreements with large international companies. One such is Rio Tinto and we plan to launch field works next year. In the first stage we will have around two billion tenge of foreign investments. We also have three other agreements with Japanese and Korean companies," the Deputy Prime Minister said at the meeting of the round table 'Perspectives and main directions of development of geology and subsoil use in Kazakhstan'.
According to Issekeshev, the main thing is the training of local specialists towards new technological approaches, as well as technology transfer.
"We view technologies which can be obtained. There is also cooperation with other large mining companies worked out, such as KORES, Iluka Resources and JOGMEC," he said.
The deputy prime minister also stressed that currently system approaches are being reviewed taking into account international experience at the legislative level.
"We carefully viewed the experience of the countries such as Australia and Canada which achieved success during the last decade. We worked out a model mainly based on Australia's experience on attracting investments in geological exploration.
"For instance, some 23,000 licenses were issued for geological exploration in Australia. There are a large number of small companies while we have issued only 400 contracts. Our task is to change the situation and to attract investments," Issekeshev said.
He added that the bill on subsoil use will be submitted to parliament by the end of 2013.