ALOR SETAR – The Kedah state government has set a 15% royalty rate from the mining of rare earth elements (REE) in the state starting next year.
Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor said this is a new rate which will be collected if REE becomes the key ore deliverable of Kedah’s mining sector.
“To ensure that this new revenue will bring full benefits to the people, for 2024, the Kedah state land administration has planned revenue collection from the point of view of viability of revenue collection or the most viable source of government revenue for the future.
“Following the approval of the REE exploration, the state government expressed its gratitude to the federal government for providing Kedah the opportunity to be selected as the second pilot project after Perak,” he said when tabling the Kedah Budget 2024 during the Kedah state assembly session at Wisma Darul Aman, here today.
Muhammad Sanusi said the pilot project selection had placed Kedah as a state with the potential to carry out REE mining with an estimated 250,000 tonnes by the Department of Minerals and Geoscience, compared with the state’s total REE reserves amounting to 1.2 million tonnes.
“This figure is an exploration of new (revenue) source that will be extracted in the next 10 years.
“We hope that the potential revenue which will bring a huge impact on the state’s economy will be managed efficiently, reliably and fairly for all parties, especially the people of Kedah,” he said.
Meanwhile, when met after the budget tabling, he said the state government hoped the sector would start generating revenue by mid-2024, based on an extraction approval granted since August 2022. – November 26, 2023