Mining Sector Improving
SA's Gordhan rules out mine taxes, defends ANC
The finance minister wants to assure investors, mining houses and others "that the ANC, in 18 years, has demonstrated immense responsibility in the way it has managed its relationship with business and investors."
Posted: Thursday , 01 Nov 2012
(BLOOMBERG) -
South Africa's ruling African National Congress has been responsible in its relationship with investors and doesn't have immediate plans to boost taxes in mining, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said.
"Taxing a particular industry is not within our radar at the moment," Gordhan, 63, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Pretoria yesterday. "The assurance we want to give investors, mining houses, others, is that the ANC, in 18 years, has demonstrated immense responsibility in the way it has managed its relationship with business and investors."
Gordhan is trying to shore up confidence as the ANC's push for "radical" measures to combat a 25 percent unemployment rate unsettles investors and after Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's downgraded South Africa for the first time since the end of apartheid. ANC members are set rule on proposals to nationalize mining assets and raise taxes when they meet at a party leadership conference in December.