The Ministry of Land and Resources ("MLR") has recently issued the Circular on Relevant Matters Concerning Improvement in the Administration of Registering the Exploitation of Mineral Resources (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") to seek comments from all walks of life by October 31, 2017.
The Draft for Comment comprises provisions to improve administration of delineating mining areas, regulate the additional granting of mining rights and the approval of the renewed registration, and regulate and improve administration of registering changes to mining rights. The Draft for Comment prescribes that once a mining area is identified, the registration administration authorities at all levels should not accept new applications for mining rights over that mining area. The retention period for the mining area is no more than eight years for large mines and no more than four years for medium and small ones. Moreover, the Draft for Comment clearly specifies that the party applying for mining rights should be qualified as an enterprise legal person. A foreign-invested enterprise that applies for mining rights over restricted category of mines has to present the approval document issued by the relevant department for the project. And the application for mining rights over radioactive mineral resources requires the presence of the approval document granted by the competent authority of the industry for the project.