Minister of State for Natural Resources, Fergus O'Dowd TD, has welcomed the annual Survey of Mining Companies results published by the Fraser Institute of Canada, in which Ireland ranked fourth in the world among 112 jurisdictions for good mining policy.

Jurisdictions with the highest scores are: Sweden, Finland, Alberta (Canada), Ireland, Wyoming (USA), Western Australia, New Brunswick (Canada), Nevada (USA), Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada), and Norway.

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He said: "This placing compares to Ireland's previous performance at 6th out of 96 jurisdictions in 2012; 9th out of 93 in 2011 when we broke in to the top ten; 16th among 79 in 2010."

Ireland was placed 17th of 72 in 2009 and 26th out of 71 jurisdictions included in the survey in 2008.

Minister O'Dowd was particularly pleased at the assessment in eight categories that go to make up the overall ranking, where Ireland scored in the top five including; Infrastructure (includes access to roads, power availability, etc.) (rank 1); Quality of the geological database (rank 2); Taxation regime (rank 3), Socio economic agreements/community development conditions (rank 3) and Level of security (rank 4).

In 2012, Ireland was Europe's largest producer of zinc metal in concentrate (32% of all European zinc mine output, inclusive of the Russian Federation) and the 10th largest producer in the world (2.5% of world output).

(CD/JP)