Progressive legislation and a healthy investment environment have made Chile the mining capital of Latin America, and one of the world’s leading mining nations, producing almost a third of the global copper output and a wide variety of other minerals.
The mining sector is one of the pillars of the Chilean economy, accounting for around 10% of its GDP and more than 50% of its exports. Mining is mostly concentrated in the Atacama Desert region of northern Chile, which is sparsely populated. Products other than copper include gold, silver, molybdenum, iron and a series of industrial minerals products including lithium (key statistics sourced from Cochilco 2018):
- Highly productive Andean geology receptive for a wide variety of "World Class" deposits - not least for copper and precious metals
- World's top producer and exporter of copper by volume at 5.5Mt fine Cu in 2017 (more than double that of 2nd place Peru) – representing 27% of world production
- Chile is host to 4 of the world’s top 10 copper mining districts – 7 of the top 20
- World’s largest reserves of fine copper at > 170Mt (double that of 2nd place Australia)
- World’s largest producer of SX-EW copper – 1.6Mt fine Cu in 2017 (more than double that of 2nd place Democratic Republic of Congo) – representing 44% of world production
- World's 2nd producer of lithium (2017 – 14,100 metric tons), 2nd producer of molybdenum (2017 – 63,000 metric tons), 6th producer of silver (2017 – 1,318 metric tons), 21st producer of gold (2017 – 37.9 metric tons)
- The Atacama Desert of northern Chile, is sparsely populated and mining is the principal activity
- Transparent and secure legal framework for securing exploration and mining tenement
- One of Latin America's fastest growing economies
- Stable political and fiscal environment that encourages foreign investment