http://www.cbc.ca/news/
Convention generates $72M for Toronto’s economy
It’s billed as the premier mining conference in the world, attracting both those who enthusiastically want to expand mineral exploration and excavation, as well as those who want to stop it.
From its humble beginnings at the King Edward Hotel in 1932 when rough-and-ready prospectors would come in fresh from the field, laying their mineral finds on the table to seek deals with Bay Street investors, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s annual convention has evolved into a glitzy four-day affair at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
The conference, which ends Wednesday, draws 30,000 investors, analysts, mining executives, geologists, prospectors and government officials from 120 countries. African and South American countries were represented in full force at the convention.
Instead of mineral samples — though some conference delegates still bring those — these days, glossy brochures and high-tech presentations are used to seal deals, not to mention the wooing of potential investors with free-flowing beer and fancy cocktail parties after hours.
Given Toronto’s pre-eminence in the mining sector, the city is a natural host for the event, which pumped $72 million into the local economy last year, said PDAC executive director Ross Gallinger.
The Toronto Stock Exchange has 1,629 mining-related companies listed, far more than any other exchange in the world. “The TSX has always been the forum for financial investment in the mining business,” said Gallinger.
A consistent theme at the conference for several years has been the shortage of skilled workers, he added. “We see a real surplus of jobs and a shortfall of people. Hundreds of thousands of jobs need to be filled in the next 20 years.”
Countries from around the world attend not only to announce that they are open for business in the mining sector but also to learn about best practices in the industry, said Gallinger.
The convention welcomed representatives from among the richest as well as the poorest nations on earth, including the five that follow.
Australia
With 16 booths huddled under a massive canopy emblazoned with a kangaroo, the country’s display was impossible to miss. Mining is a primary industry, contributing about 5.6 per cent of Australia’s GDP — about $120 billion US a year to the economy. The country has mining activity in all of its states and territories.
“Nationally, it’s the main wealth generator,” said Brad John. Uranium, gold, copper, silver, iron ore and bauxite are the main minerals. Australia is also the world’s largest producer of opals and the second-largest producer of nickel after Russia.
Officials with the Mining Ministry do the initial legwork, providing potential investors with airborne geophysical data on potential sites free of charge to encourage them to stake a claim. That sort of data helped to reveal a silver mine, the world’s largest, but there was no surface evidence of it.
“There’s a perception that what could be found has been found, but in fact there’s still lots of potential for growth,” said John. “We’re in competition with the rest of the world, so we’re trying to lower the exploration risk profile by providing data. It might cost us millions of dollars but we just have to get one discovery and it’s hundreds of millions dollars back to the government.”
The country’s stable government, solid regulatory framework and tough environmental rules also give it a competitive advantage, he added.
For the rest of this article, please go to the CBC News website: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/03/07/mining-convention-toronto.html