Royalty won’t be applied to cement, Chile

A bill under review in Chile’s congress and that aims to introduce royalties on mineral production will not affect cement, daily Estrategia quoted mining under-secretary Patricio Morales as saying.

Morales made the announcement after the country’s cement producers association (Aprocem) went before the lower house’s mining and finance joint committee arguing that under the International Standard Industrial Classification cement is an industrial product and should not have the royalty applied to it.

As it currently stands, the bill calls for a three per cent royalty on metallic mining sales and a one per cent royalty on non-metallic mining sales, less direct labor and input costs, including transport. The law would come into force on January 1, 2005 but be deductible from corporate taxes until January 1, 2008, after which it would be applied as an additional tax.