Philippines may tax nickel exports to follow Indonesia’s success

MANILA, Jan 30 (Bloomberg): The Philippines is considering taxing nickel ore exports among options to push miners in the world’s second-biggest supplier of the metal to invest in processing instead of just shipping raw minerals, a route that top nickel producer Indonesia has taken and succeeded in.

"We want to move out from being just part of the supply chain. We want to be part of the value chain,” Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Antonia Yulo Loyzaga said in an interview in her office on Monday. Without facilities to process mineral ore, "we will just be a vendor country. And we don’t want to be a vendor country,” said Loyzaga, who’s also in charge of the mining sector.