Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Hatta Rajasa stated that 25 mineral companies, out of a total of 112, have already agreed to conduct re-negotiations on their mining contracts.

"The negotiation team has reported that 25 companies have already agreed to renegotiate," he stated after a coordination meeting on the issue here on Thursday.

Hatta noted that seven companies had agreed to revise their working contract agreements while 18 others, their coal mining contract agreements (PKP2B).

He noted that renegotiation of the contracts would cover royalty payment, divestment, land use reduction, smelter development and use of local contents to give more benefit to national economy.

"Tomorrow the deal will be put forth in the form of an agreement and signed. Therefore I have asked for the acceleration of the negotiations so that their deals can immediately be put into the new contracts," he explained.

Energy and mineral resource minister Jero Wacik assured that the signing of renegotiation agreements with the 25 companies would be done immediately.

He added, however that the renegotiation agreement did not as yet include big minerals mining companies that have long been operating in the country such as PT Freeport Indonesia and PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara.

"They are not yet included. But progress has been made. So, some big companies have already expressed their intent to pay bigger royalty. The figures will be made known after an agreement is reached later," he explained.

The government has conducted talks with 37 companies with regard to renegotiating their working contracts and with 75 others over their PKP2B agreements.

After having made the deals with 25 companies, there are still 87 companies left that have not yet agreed to revise their mining contracts, he added.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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