TORONTO, March 8 (Reuters) – Canada will not force Chinese state-investors in three of its large mining companies to divest stakes, as such a move would create policy uncertainty, the natural resources minister told Reuters.
In November, Canada had asked three Chinese companies to sell their stakes in Toronto-listed lithium explorers following a national security review, drawing criticism from the mining industry and raising questions about the future of other Chinese investments in the Canadian mining sector.
“If you start looking backwards at investments, it will create all kinds of uncertainty about whether an investment is ever really an investment,” Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in an interview late on Tuesday on the sidelines of Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference in Toronto.
Three of Canada’s largest mining companies – Teck Resources (TECKb.TO), Ivanhoe Mines Limited (IVN.TO) and First Quantum Minerals Limited (FM.TO), – count Chinese state-owned enterprises as their biggest single shareholder.
For the rest of this article: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/canada-will-not-retrospectively-target-chinese-investments-canadian-mining-2023-03-08/