Unfortunately, the mining sector in our country provides added value to our economy far below its potential. Of course, many reasons can be cited, but the first ones that come to mind are the following;
- Anti-environmental black propaganda from the past and still deliberately used by some circles,
- Continuation of the desire to make large financial gains in a short period of time by mining outcrops with unplanned and unprojected production activities that are far from a professional approach for many years,
- Developing insecurity among investors due to the prolonged permitting processes in recent years,
- Requirement of large investment capital and a long payback period,
- Failures resulting from insufficient attention to search processes and the desire to focus on direct sales.
Many such reasons can be listed. However, no justification can change the fact that while the share of mining in the Gross Domestic Product is over 4% in developed countries (in some countries it can reach up to 14%), this rate is around 1.2% in Turkey. Moreover, Turkey ranks 8th in the world in terms of resource diversity. Despite this, such a low added value shows that our underground resources continue to remain underground and do not turn into our underground wealth and do not provide any benefit to our country.
In order to put our underground resources into the service of our country and turn them into material value, the state and the nation should join hands and both complete our deficiencies and turn these resources into our social and social wealth by applying the approaches in developed countries.
Our state is making important breakthroughs in terms of national energy and mining policy. In the coming period (2024 is indicated in the policy plans), changes will be made in the legislation and there will be incentives and improvements. However, we expect our business world and investors to take important initiatives in the mining sector.
We know that we have large companies that have become a global power in the mining sector. Both the large-scale companies of our country and the large-scale companies with foreign investments in our country are companies that know the rules in the mining sector and approach and produce accordingly. However, small-scale companies or new investors in the mining sector may experience many problems. In order to avoid these problems, they should carry out their work in a professional manner and make their investment plans accordingly, with an approach dominated by mining law, knowing the necessity of long-term exploration and research due to the nature of mining, being patient and accepting the facts that large investments may be required. In this way, both limited financial resources are prevented from being wasted and unsuccessful initiatives are prevented before they start. Evaluating each field as a project in a professional sense and finalizing this project successfully, thinking about afforestation after the end of production at the same time as the first digging in the field; these are our sine qua non to turn our resources into our wealth and to correct many mistakes.