All told, the government wants to attract some $6 billion in new investment by 2010 to develop 23 projects it sees as promising. "We now hope to capture the imagination of people all over the world," says Michael Defensor, Secretary of the Dept. of Energy and Natural Resources in the Philippines. "The government is supporting companies in a big way."
The hope is that foreign investment in mining will help fill government coffers with royalty payments and generate tens of thousands of jobs. If all 23 projects are developed, officials say, the country's mineral exports could quadruple to some $3.3 billion. "The Philippine mining industry will be one of the main drivers of growth, and main means of fighting rural poverty," says Benjamin Philip Romualdez, president of the Chamber of Mines and CEO of Benguet, the oldest mining company in the country.
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