Latest news with #NicolasGrau
Reuters
03-07-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Chile speeds up permitting for mining and other investment projects
SANTIAGO, July 1 (Reuters) - Chile's congress approved long-awaited legislation to speed up the permitting process for investment projects in the country on Tuesday. The law was a key demand from the country's mining industry as well as renewable energy companies and others who said the lengthy permitting process was holding back investment. Chile is the world's largest copper producer and one of the largest lithium producers. The legislation passed with 93 votes in favor, 27 against and 17 abstentions, and now awaits the president's signature to be enacted. "This will allow us to substantially reduce permitting times, reducing processing times between 30% and 70%, and we'll do it without reducing regulatory standards," economy minister Nicolas Grau told reporters after the law was passed. A reform to the environmental assessment system, the main requirement for investment projects, is also pending but the process has faced setbacks and delays.
France 24
19-06-2025
- Business
- France 24
Chile ups hake catch limits for small-scale fishermen
The new regulation increases their percentage from 40% to 45% of the annual catch quota of 35,000 tons of this fish, with the remaining 55% going to industrial fisheries. The small-scale anglers had been pressing for 70%. One of the country's most popular consumed species, the hake population has decreased by 70% over the last two decades, according to the Fishing Development Institute, a non-profit research group. The new regulation was approved 38-0 with one abstention in the Chilean Senate. The South Pacific hake, or merluccius gayi, provides a living for some 4,000 small-scale fishermen in Chile, a country with over 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) of coastline and a voracious appetite for the fish known as "merluza" in Spanish. Since 2012, the common hake has been considered an overfished species in Chile, with limits on when and how much of the relatively inexpensive fish can be caught. Along central Chile's traditional fishing heartland, more and more boats are returning to port with empty holds as overfishing and climate change decimate hake stocks. Conservationists have also been critical of industrial fishing's practice of bottom trawling, which has severe impacts for oceans and ecosystems. The law passed Wednesday will also boost the allowances for small-scale fishermen who catch jack mackerel, sardines and anchovies, among other fish. Economy Minister Nicolas Grau said the new law means a redistribution of more than $160 million from the industrial sector to artisans. Hundreds of non-industrial fishermen staged violent protests in late March in central and southern Chile, demanding better fishing percentages. Pacific Blu, the company that fishes hake the most, threatened to close its factory if its catch quota was reduced too much, but backed off the threats with the new law's numbers.
