• LOSS: The Mexican mining sector is expected to lose around 20% of annual revenue due to the suspension of operations mandated by the Mexican government’s emergency declaration according to an estimate by AIMMGM, a professional association of mining engineers.
• ESSENTIAL: According to Mexico’s statistics agency (INEGI), the annual revenue from mining activities in Mexico amounted to the equivalent of US $24.2 billion and the mining industry has alerted about not being deemed an essential activity in the current emergency.
• COSTLY: “Authorities don’t get the importance of this activity … There are processes that cannot be stopped and it takes days to unload and load material from the metallurgy tanks”, said Salvador García, head of Mexico’s Association of Mining, Metallurgical, and Geological Engineers (AIMMGM).
• NUMBERS: According to government’s data, the mining sector represents 4% of Mexico’s GDP and employs close to 200,000 workers, according to INEGI. Mexico is the world’s largest silver producing country and the world’s tenth largest gold producing country.
