Copper price edges down to two-week low amid demand uncertainty
The metal headed for a third daily decline, with copper miners also under pressure as a risk-off mood took hold in broader equity markets.
Peru will target the “excess profits” that mining companies have earned from rising metal prices around the world, Economy and Finance Minister Oscar Graham told Reuters in an interview late Friday.
The world’s second-largest copper supplier will focus on surplus profits, potentially through an “adjustment” to taxes, Graham said, as the metal trades at near-record levels of around $10,000 per ton following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Graham said the margins of the adjustment are being evaluated but it is important the mining sector retain its competitiveness and that investment will not be discouraged. He also told Reuters that Peru needs a better distribution of mining wealth to communities to quell recent protests, which have halted output in some key mines.
Peruvian President Pedro Castillo pledged to raise taxes on the mining sector when he came to office last year. His current plan, however, is much less ambitious than initially promised after it faced resistance from miners and a split Congress, according to the report.
(By Max Zimmerman)
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