IGO suspends annual dividends from Tianqi JV amid market downturn
The JV experienced a build in lithium hydroxide inventory at Kwinana over recent months.
The head of the Australian Stock Exchange says the country should prepare for another mining boom in around a decade’s time by providing exploratory tax concessions to resource juniors.
The Herald Sun reports the ASX’s chief executive Elmer Funke Kupper says the Federal Government should lighten the burden on start-up mining companies by providing them with an exploration tax credit scheme worth $150 million a year, similar to one applied in Canada which had been “extremely successful.”
Kupper says this would enable start-ups to share losses with investors, as opposed to waiting seven years for mine operation to commence.
The ASX chief also said the tax scheme would enable Australia to become a greater force internationally for raising mining equity capital. Kupper noted that of $220 billion in mining equity capital raised from 2007 to 2011 only 14% had been raised in Australia, as opposed to 35% in Toronto and 24% in London.
Kupper’s remarks come just months after Australian resources minister Martin Ferguson made an impromptu declaration of an end to the mining boom during an interview with ABC news, as well as hot on the hells of other reports from industry insiders of a slump in the international resources sectors.
