• Mining’s functioning as a development agency would enable transfer of the knowledge needed to strengthen public management and aid in the formalization of the economy

“It is not enough to be good citizens by paying taxes, we need to be aware of the fact that the lack of public management is, indeed, an issue, and therefore use the skills we have developed as a sector to help solve this problem,” stated Víctor Gobitz, chair and CEO of Antamina, during his participation on the second day of Rumbo a PERUMIN “Territorial Development: A Challenge to Closing Social Gaps.”

Gobitz explained that, given mining’s vast experience in long-term planning and management of large investments, this industry has built a set of capabilities that would be of great use to public management for achieving territorial development.

“The idea is to create a public-private scheme with the mining companies, so that, acting like a development agency, we could transfer knowledge to be able to have sound territorial planning, prioritize projects, and implement them in an efficient and transparent manner,” he noted.

He thus invited the mining sector to be part of the solution, given the need for capacities for  public management at the different government levels. This way we can strengthen planning towards development, implement projects in a transparent way, and have citizens incorporate this knowledge into their decision-making process and demand compliance from the authorities.

Formalization of the Economy

On the other hand, he mentioned a second major issue that hinders our country’s development: informal economy, which he said included 75% of the Peruvian EAP.

“Just like we have to help solve the public management problem, we need to have a plan to help formalize the economy. And, from the mining sector, with what we know, we must aid the public sector with a viable proposal to formalize what can be formalized,” said the CEO of Antamina.

He mentioned, for example, that there are certain illegal activities that are conducted in the south of Peru, such are illegal gold mining, drug trafficking, and timber trafficking, which we might not be able to fully formalize. We should, nonetheless, make a great effort to strengthen the economy and prevent illegal sources of funding for vandalic activities.

Rumbo a PERUMIN

Rumbo a PERUMIN is an initiative of the Peruvian Institute of Mining Engineers (IIMP) and the Executive Committee of PERUMIN 36. It involves an agenda of virtual activities that seek to create spaces for analysis, knowledge and debate on mining.