Victorian mining and exploration is helping to keep regional Victorians in jobs and will be critical to Victoria's post-COVID recovery.
Almost 16,000 Victorians are directly employed in the resources sector, with the gold mining sector employing thousands of workers in the Bendigo region and hundreds of people in Ballarat and Stawell.
Surge funding for Earth Resources Regulation to work through exploration license applications is welcome to deal with the backlog of applications.
Funding for the continuation of the Regional Jobs and Infrastructure is a big positive for regional Victoria - particularly new funding to accelerate planning for regional projects of strategic importance.
There are a number of regional Victorians employed in mineral sands projects in the Wimmera and East Gippsland. Exploration spending is booming across the state with Victorian geologists, metallurgists and engineers developing projects from Gippsland to The Mallee.
With a number of minerals projects in the pipeline, and strong exploration across the state, measures to develop investment-ready projects in rural and regional Victoria will mean more jobs and more diverse regional economies.
Investments in regional schools and roads will be good for attracting and retaining businesses and workers outside the cities, while continued funding in pre-competitive geoscience by GSV are helping to build a greater understanding of Victoria's resources endowment.
Exploration projects across the state in gold, base metals and mineral sands have the potential to develop into new future mine projects which will bring further jobs and prosperity to the regions.
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