Perth will host to minerals industry leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation nations for the Ministers Responsible for Mining meeting from today until Friday.
Perth will host minerals industry leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation nations for the Ministers Responsible for Mining meeting from today until Friday.
The meeting, chaired by Industry Tourism and Resources Minister Ian MacFarlane, aims to provide Ministers with the opportunity to discuss the challenges caused by increasing demand for both producer and consumer economies, and the development of new technologies and applications which require new material.
Running alongside will be the inaugural Mining Industry Forum, co-ordinated by the Minerals Council of Australia, and providing a platform for comprehensive assessment of factors affecting the growth and prosperity of the minerals sector and its contribution to global economic growth as well as sustainable development.
The full text of an announcement from MCA is pasted below
Minerals industry leaders from 21 APEC member economies will meet tomorrow in Perth, Australia for the inaugural Mining Industry Forum held in conjunction with the APEC Ministers Responsible for Mining meeting chaired by the Industry,Tourism and Resources Minister, the Hon Ian MacFarlane, MP.
Minerals Council of Australia Chief Executive Mr Mitchell H Hooke, who will chair the Mining Industry Forum, said: "this is a first for Australia and a first for APEC".
The role of the Mining Industry Forum is to provide a structured platform offering the Ministers Responsible for Mining a comprehensive assessment of factors affecting the growth and prosperity of the minerals sector and its contribution to global economic growth as well as sustainable development.
"We welcome the mining industry leaders and representatives of industry organisations from APEC member economies to theinaugural Mining Industry Forum", Mr Hooke said.
"The Mining Industry Forum offers an unprecedented opportunity for an industry perspective at a time when the challenges andopportunities facing the minerals sector have seldom been greater.
The APEC region is a unique combination of member economies which are the largest minerals industry producers and those which are the largest minerals sector consumers in the world.
"Due to APEC's strong endowment of natural resources coupled with human and intellectual capital as well as technological capability, the region has become a major engine of global economic growth. APEC member economies are also vital to Australia's economic growth and prosperity - accounting for nearly 70 percent of our total international trade, with the minerals resources sector the largest single export sector", Mr Hooke said.
"The agenda for the Mining Industry Forum is structured to discuss the minerals industry's global market outlook for demand including the underlying structural adjustment creating a 'super cycle' of demand. It will cover the outlook for global supply including the speed and costs of additional supply which will be the key determining factor deciding when prices either moderate or subside.
"Importantly, it will discuss the issue of capacity constraints to future growth and development which are the key economic issues of the moment and the principle factors preventing industry, APEC member economies and the region as a whole from fully benefiting from the strongest global market growth in a generation.
The key constraints include:
- declining national minerals inventories and the real value of exploration expenditure;
- inadequate export infrastructure - rail, road, ports and shipping;
- access to human capital - professional and trade skills shortages;
- inefficient regulations governing project approvals, occupational health and safety and environmental management;
- shortage of production inputs - plant and equipment;
- barriers to international trade and foreign direct investment;
- professional capacity to implement sustainable development; and
- reconciling energy security with greenhouse gas abatement and adaptation.
Mr Hooke said he expected the Mining Industry Forum to discuss the imperative of capacity building in the pursuit of sustainable development including community relations and environmental management.
Mr Hooke said he was confident the Forum would address APEC's three objectives of: trade and investment liberalisation, business facilitation and economic and technical co-operation.
