Nickel roadmap pushed to spur industry growth

MANILA, Philippines — The local nickel sector is crafting a roadmap for the nickel sector to attract more investments and eventually spur economic growth.

Gearing up for the first-ever Nickel Initiative 2019 by March, the Philippine Nickel Industry Association (PNIA) is eyeing to start a nickel roadmap to address value adding and processing.

“The roadmap is just the start. We need to identify what needs to be done.  We hope to do it in a year’s time and come up with something to be able to promote the industry and help the government in shaping the right policies,” PNIA president Dante Bravo said during the Nickel Initiative briefing yesterday.

While regulations and policies are still uncertain in the mining industry, PNIA said crafting the roadmap will ensure a fair understanding of what the role of the nickel industry is, which they believe is a significant economic driver considering that the Philippines is the world’s second largest supplier of nickel ore.

“There’s going to be appropriate policies to support the initiative, if and when we will have the value adding processing plant, then all of these will support that,” Bravo said.

Among the issues that will be included in the roadmap are the needed infrastructure, incentives, power and peace and security.

”Our policies should encourage high quality investment because mining is capital-intensive. We have to know how to move forward and convince the government that there is a need to implement new policies if we want to go into that direction,” he said.

The Nickel Initiative seeks to explore global trends in nickel-consuming sectors to identify investment opportunities and areas for cooperation and collaboration and serve as a platform for industries with shared interests in nickel such as e-vehicles, transportation and stainless steel to stimulate investor interest.

PNIA is composed of Agata Mining Ventures Inc., CTP Construction and Mining Corp., Citinickel Mines and Development Corp., Carrascal Nickel Corp., DMCI Mining Corp., Marcventures Mining and Development Corp., and Platinum Group Metals Corp.