The institute conducted an update to its annual survey during the month of June, “following the global recovery in commodity prices and the introduction of new regulatory hurdles and taxation in many jurisdictions.”

The survey is based on the opinions of mining executives from 429 mineral exploration and development companies.

Unexpectedly, South Africa moved 13 places up the institute’s ladder, to position 31 in the overall rankings. In April, South Africa came in at No. 44.

The institute says that, as commodity prices recovered after the global meltdown, several of the jurisdictions it surveys took steps that could increase both regulatory hurdles and taxation, and thus make mining more difficult and costly.

By contrast, South Africa’s northern neighbor, Botswana, came in second to Finland on this survey question, and ranked a creditable eighth overall, after Alberta, Finland, Quebec, Yukon Territory and Saskatchewan, all of Canada, Chile, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

“In order to attract mining investment, jurisdictions must uphold the rule of law and respect negotiated contracts and property rights. Jurisdictions that fail to do so cannot compete successfully on a global scale," said Fred McMahon, the survey’s coordinator and the institute’s vice-president of international policy research, in an interview with Mining Weekly.

The improvement in South Africa’s ranking was a bit of a surprise, McMahon said.

The Fraser Institute survey was peppered with comments on negativity that exploration companies, in particular, are experiencing.

While Botswana was lauded for being “excellent and forward looking,” Tanzania, one respondent claimed, was sliding back into “old communist political rhetoric,” a far cry from Tanzania Chamber of Minerals and Energy executive secretary executive Emmanuel Jengo’s call, made in Johannesburg last month, for African governments to create stock-exchange-enabling legislation for the African public to participate more widely in investment.

Australia, a miner told the institute’s survey team, had shown its remoteness from the crucial workings of the mining industry.

Canada’s Quebec province, an exploration company president said, was fast declining as a place to do business, because its government had no clear policy and was guided by the flow of public opinion rather than common sense.

Canada, an exploration company president said, had serious issues with new aboriginal regulations: “It’s a nightmare. We’re thinking of getting out of mining.”

Of Manitoba, another said: “It’s becoming bad news for miners. We’re battling not only the environmentalists but also First Nations and now Manitoba Hydro.”

Latin America’s anti-mining groups were said to be “problematic” in continuing to extort mining companies and making company- damaging false claims in the media.

“Mexico is becoming increasingly more dangerous and the drug cartel activities continue to increase and spread the violence to historically nonviolent areas,” a producer company executive said.

Peru, an exploration company said, had deteriorated dramatically, with tenure no longer secure and government policy being dictated by nongovernmental groups.

Argentina politicians and government officers, said a legal adviser, were the main culprits when it came to engendering negative mining attitudes.

New taxes in Nevada, in the United States, a producer said, would be introduced for exploration.

A consultant told the Fraser Institute surveyors that he anticipated universal uncertainty for mining investors and another added that all Australian jurisdictions were no longer worth exploring because of tax uncertainty.

New Zealand was condemned as being a basket case.

Webber Wentzel resources lawyer Peter Leon has expressed the view that South Africa’s Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu has taken “a very important first step in the right direction” in presiding over the historic 13-point government, labor and business declaration.

Leon, who co-heads law firm Webber Wentzel’s mining practice group, sees the major change as being government’s new joint approach.

The Fraser Institute has conducted an annual survey of metal mining and exploration companies since 1997 in order to assess how mineral endowments and public policy factors, such as taxation and regulation, affect exploration investment. The survey results represent the opinions of executives and exploration managers in mining and mining consulting companies operating around the world.