A Mexican-owned copper mining company announced Friday it was pulling out of a $1.4 billion project in southern Peru because of the vehement opposition of local residents.
Southern Peru`s planned "Tia Maria" mine in the Tambo Valley in the Arequipa region has faced months of protests by locals who fear pollution damaging to agriculture.
"The Tia Maria project is going. We have done our best as a company and as people to realize a project that would have brought great benefits to the Tambo and to Peru," Julio Morriberon, an executive of the company, told RPP radio.
"There`s been a total politicization in the valley and indecisiveness on the part of the authorities," he said.
However, Peru`s Energy and Mines Minister Rosa Maria Ortiz later said Morriberon had exaggerated, and that the government expected the company to issue a correction.
Southern Peru is an affiliate of Mexico`s Southern Copper.
