The mining industry in Honduras has once again demanded that the government approve a legal framework for the sector, citing financial losses and reduction of jobs resulting from a lack of investment. The plans to expand mining did not come about because “they have our hands tied without an established legal framework, and the most likely is that we will have to begin layoffs in 2009,” Santos Gabino Carvajal, president of the National Mining Association of Honduras, told Tierramérica.

So far this year the sector has laid off 1,500 employees, he said.

Three years ago, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional 11 articles of the mining law. The bill for a new mining law has been bogged down in Congress since 2006.