From January 10 there will be a rise in the fees for operating licenses for extracting construction materials, precious stones and semiprecious stones and other materials.
Arguing that the charges that have been in effect up until now"do not allow the state to comply with the policies and plans of the government, for the mining sector,"the Ministry of Energy and Mines has made changes to the the fees for mining licenses.
Although the government is threatening to cancel concessions, aggregate traders have raised their prices by up to 17% in opposition to the tax on the extraction of construction materials in Panama.
Fourteen days after the start of collections of the tax on extraction of materials, increases of up to 17% have been recorded in final consumer prices in some retail outlets.
In order to pay for the increase in pension payments, an increase has been made to taxes on extraction of aggregates, which represents an increase of 12 to 25% in the price of housing.
Government officials say that the new tax on the final price of housing only represents an increase of 1%, while the construction industry argues that prices will rise by 25%.