Asean mining companies must embrace sustainable growth with social protection and natural resource conservation, said Asean secretary-general Ong Keng Yong.

Yong told participants of the Asia Pacific mining conference of the need to minimize and control wastes and restore and regenerated mined-out areas.

"The civil society groups campaigning for environmental protection must engage in a constructive way," said Yong.

He expressed confidence that Asean mining companies can fully embrace corporate social responsibility and become trend-setters and model corporate citizens in environmental sustainable mining and land rehabilitation.

Yong noted that the minerals industry has not been good at explaining itself to the public and often suffered from negative publicity.

"A sense of urgency for concerted action has always been expressed to address the negative perception that marked the mining industry’s development over the years due to such issues as perceived damage to river systems and farmlands from mine tailings and wastes, socio-economic dislocations of families and indigenous peoples and the environmental impact of open pit mining methods."

Yong has encouraged all stakeholders to constantly question their conventional assumptions and examine minerals-related issues in the light of the integration of economic, environmental and social objectives.

"This shift to a multidisciplinary approach with the involvement of all stakeholders in decision making would never happen overnight. But if we continue to plan and work together, Asean will achieve its goal of an economically and environmentally sustainable minerals industry."

The Asean secretarygeneral is confident that the demand for minerals will continue to grow on the back of the rising external demand especially from China and India and the continued market expansion within the Asean member-countries.

The potential of the minerals sector in Asean has yet to be fully realized, said Yong. Despite its rich mineral endowment, nonenergy minerals and base metals production account for less than one percent of the total Asean GDP in 2003.

Exports of minerals account for a mere 0.7 percent of the total Sean GDP. "We should plan together and work to improve the minerals sector’s economic contribution," said Yong.

The Asean ministers responsible for minerals and mines have signed the ministerial understanding on Asean cooperation in minerals at the First Ministerial Meeting on Minerals in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia on Aug. 4, 2005.