Hanoi (VNA) – Delegates at the 8^th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Minerals (AMMin 8) agreed to issue🧜 a joint statement on the approval of Phase 2 of the ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan (AMCAP-III) for 2021-2025.

The 2021-2025 plan is expected to create an advanced minerals sector for socio-economic prosperity and environment in the region by enhancing trade, investment and cooperation. It will also improve capacity for sustainable minerals development in the region.

Promoting minerals value chain

In his closing remarks at AMMin 8 on October 8 afternoon, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Quy Kien said the ministers agreed on various aggressive practical measures to foster cooperation in coping with challenges facing ASEAN. They also sought measures to maintain cooperation momentum and to orient the ASEAN community to develop more strongly and become a regional nucleus.

They recognised the emerging and traditional demand for minerals and metals as well as the strong outlook for the global minerals industry in both the short and medium terms amidst global expectations of eventual post pandemic economic recovery.

The meeting called for concerted efforts to create an advanced and progressive ASEAN minerals sector for the region’s socio-economic prosperity and environmental wellbeing through enhancing trade and investment and strengthening cooperation and capacity building for sustainable minerals developme🌟nt in the region.

The meeting therefore adopted Phase 2 of AMCAP-III to guide ASEAN cooperation in the minerals sector under the ASEAN Economic Blueprint 2025 for the period of 2021- 2025. The ministers pledged to gear ASEAN minerals cooperation towards promoting the region as a minerals investment destination and building investments in all stages of the minerals value chain. They commenced by focusing on promoting investments into mineral exploration. In this regard, the meeting agreed to focus AMCAP-III Phase 2 towards: boosting domestic and international investments in all components of the minerals value chain; adopting sustainable minerals development principles and working to expand stakeholder engagement and contribution; building human, institutional and technical capacities in minerals governance; and developing new strategies and effective tools for collecting and processing data for the ASEAN minerals information system to drive investments and sustainable development. The meeting welcomed the launch of the Study on the Development Prospects of ASEAN Minerals Cooperation (DPAMC) funded under the ASEAN-Australia Development Cooperation Programme Phase II (AADCP 2).

It acknowledged that the findings and analysis of the DPAMC Study together with the Scoping Study for enhancing the ASEAN Minerals Database and Information System (AMDIS) not only supported the development of the AMCAP Phase 2 in strengthening the current ASEAN cooperation in minerals but also provides timely recommendations for visioning in the ASEAN minerals sector beyond 2025.

Developing natural resources map, geological data

According to the joint statement, in order to deepen support for initiatives on trade and investment, SMD and capacity building, the meeting noted the plan to begin organising workshops on ASEAN project Final 4 proposal development in late 2021. These will enhance capacities and understanding by proponents of the ASEAN project proposal development, appraisal and approval processes. This will thereby improve both the quality of projects at entry and access to available support for ASEAN community building from dialogue partners. The meeting recognised that both geological and policy feasibility are key to increasing investments. Hence, ASEAN minerals information systems must develop new strategies and effective tools to upgrade the AMDIS in order to support more aggressive investment promotion. It must also invest to develop sufficient and high quality pre-competitive geological data and resource mapping. The delegates said new strategies and effective tools must be devised to upgrade the ASEAN Mineral Database and Information System (AMDIS) in order to support investment promotion more actively. There must also be development of complete, high-quality geological data and resource maps. AMMin 8 also adopted recommendations to optimise opportunities in minerals as an important part of priority economic targets this year. To signal the importance of seizing the opportunities arising from global trends and shifts in the international minerals and metals markets and the evolving intensity of demand for minerals and metals up to 2050 and beyond, the meeting endorsed key recommendations to respond to opportunities and challenges of a minerals intensive future as part of the 2021 priority economic deliverables of Brunei’s 2021 ASEAN Chairmanship. Given that each ASEAN member state has respective resource endowments and roles to play in the minerals value chain, the meeting tasked the ASEAN minerals senior officials to undertake preparatory studies and supporting activities. These will collaborate with other relevant ASEAN sectoral bodies to help position ASEAN for long-term growth not only in minerals trade/exports but also in regional value chains. The ministers thanked Vietnam for hosting the online event and expressed their hope that Brunei will host the ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Minerals (ASOMM), which is slated for 2022. Cambodia will host the AMMin 9 in 2023. ASEAN brings together ten member countries, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam./.