Zimbabwe tax will cost Amplats $10 million a year

LONDON (Reuters) – Zimbabwe's new 15 percent export tax on raw platinum, which was introduced earlier than expected in January, will cost Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) about $10 million a year, Chief Executive Chris Griffith said.

"We are talking very, very strongly with the government at the moment and we have explained the impact on the company," Griffith said in an interview on the sidelines of the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town.

"The impact is about $10 million (in lost earnings) but in a mine that has just been investing and putting capital in and that needs to start making money back because we have been investing very heavily in building houses too. Those things will stop, many of the programmes (will stop)."

Zimbabwe's government first proposed the tax on unrefined platinum in 2013, in an effort to push mining companies to process the metal domestically. Late last year however it said it would postpone it until January 2017 to give miners time to build the smelting and refining plants.

But the government's finance bill, which was published on Jan. 9, proposed its introduction from Jan. 1, causing concern among Amplats, the world's largest platinum producer, and others that operate in the country.