Lima, March 25, 2024. Rafael Lengua, a partner at Philippi Prietocarrizosa Ferrero DU & Uría, said that the Executive is implementing simple measures to speed up exploration projects. This was announced during his participation as a panelist at the last Jueves Minero (Mining Thursday) of the Peruvian Institute of Mining Engineers (IIMP), where proEXPLO 2025 was launched.

"Today we see the future with much optimism, because after a long time the importance of mining has been highlighted on the country's political agenda, and we see a real intention to make the improvements that the industry needs. Finally, very simple measures are being taken, such as the elimination of the collection permit for the elaboration of the baselines of the Environmental Impact Assessments. We need to be more aggressive," he said.

In this regard, Lengua suggested following the example of other jurisdictions such as Chile and Canada, where exploration permits are obtained in a maximum period of six months. "If they can, why can't we? We cannot deny ourselves as a country this opportunity. It is not enough to be competitive, we have to aspire to always be the best," he said.

Loss of competitiveness

Likewise, the lawyer warned that, if adequate measures are not taken, Peru will continue to lose competitiveness, despite the fact that it is an attractive country to invest in mining. He recalled that together with Macroconsult they prepared a report on the mining competitiveness index for the IIMP. In it, they compared our country with seven other major mining jurisdictions.

"After comparing Peru with Chile, British Columbia or Queensland, we saw that Peru is the country that requires the most permits to carry out drilling activities, and it is not only the country that requires the most but also the country where it takes the longest time to obtain those permits to finally carry out exploration activities. The term is up to two years," he concluded.