Through the call “Investment Projects for Mining Development 2020”, the Ministry of Mines and Energy will allocate up to $35,000 million to territorial entities receiving direct royalties (mayors’ and governors’ offices) throughout the country in the 2019-2020 biennium.

These resources are essential for the execution of investment projects within the framework of sustainable economic reactivation in the mining sector.

In this area, the Government believes that the mining sector will show a greater reactivation of the economy starting this year, especially due to the influence of the works in the regions where they are executed, where they provide employment and development in both municipalities and departments.

According to the Vice Minister of Mines, Sandra Sandoval, “the Colombian mining sector is an essential engine for the country’s development and needs to be strengthened to provide services to the mining community. That is why we promoted this initiative with a view to achieving higher standards and adopting better practices, as well as to promote the development of mining ventures and the minerals value chain.

Thus, three lines of projects were established to strengthen regional attention to the mining community with services that can respond to their needs.

The project lines will benefit a greater number of miners, improving their production processes and contributing to the generation of economic growth opportunities, which will be reflected in higher income for the benefit of the regions.

The three options

The three alternatives are the strengthening of infrastructure for the provision of mining development services. This corresponds to the attention of the mining community through Mining Development Centers (with an investment of a maximum of $8.5 billion pesos), to meet the sectoral needs of miners and related value chain actors.

There is also the construction of community plants for gold ore beneficiation. Corresponds to the industrial or semi-industrial installation in which an ore is treated for the recovery of metals or compounds of interest, increasing the community gathering around the gold ore beneficiation and increasing the economic-mining development of the region.

There is also the methodological guide for the productive improvement in the gold ore beneficiation stage. It corresponds to the establishment of the optimal route for gold beneficiation based on the characterization of deposits, understanding mineral deposit as the accumulation on or near the surface of metallic and non-metallic compounds, which due to their extension or enrichment can be recovered with economic benefit.

Benefits

Investment projects must be co-financed and submitted by January 21, 2021, in accordance with the provisions of Annex 1 “Call for investment projects for mining development 2020” of Resolution 40356 of 2020. At that moment they enter a first phase of verification by an interdisciplinary group of the Ministry of Mines and Energy that will confirm if they meet the requirements according to the order of arrival and until the resources are exhausted. The approval of the projects with their respective allocation of resources will be adopted by means of a resolution.

In addition, the initiatives must comply with the procedures and requirements of the General Royalties System, especially in relation to the project cycle.

Applications will be received virtually through the e-mail fomentominero@minenergia.gov.co and must be identified with the reference, name of the territorial entity, department and project line to which it applies.