Chile's ministro de Hacienda (Finance Minister), Jorge Quiroz, projected that Chilean mining will fall between 8% and 9% this year, according to BioBioChile. He made the remarks in his speech at the Encuentro Nacional del Agro (Enagro, the National Agriculture Meeting) 2026.
The figure is worse than his previous estimate. When he first spoke of how "we are living through a great mining recession", Quiroz had anticipated a 7% drop in output.
According to BioBioChile, the Government estimates this decline will subtract one point from GDP, the gross domestic product, which measures everything the country produces in a year. To give you an idea, it is as if one in every hundred parts of the Chilean economy ceased to exist because of the decline of a single sector.
Quiroz blamed what he called "a sequence of policies" that, in his view, held back investment. He also criticized the lack of action in response to falling ore grades. The grade is the concentration of copper in the rock: if it drops, more earth has to be moved to extract the same amount of metal.
The minister added that a record number of projects are now entering the mining sector, but warned that "this is going to take time to resolve". The source does not specify how many projects there are or when they would begin producing.
The decline comes with copper at historic prices. The rise is explained by fears of a possible United States tariff and by demand for the metal for electrification and data centers. In other words, copper is worth a lot, but Chile is extracting less.
The major mining companies were also hit by the weather. Heavy snowfalls halted operations, and accidents and tragedies with workers killed forced total or partial production stoppages for some periods.
In the case of Codelco, the state-owned copper company, the controversy centers on delays in its structural projects and on cases of overproduction, according to the same outlet. The source provides no figures on the effect of the decline on mining employment.
At Enagro, Quiroz also spoke about fuel. He described the bencinazo (the sharp gasoline price hike) as "the toughest decision we have had to make as a Government" and said that before that measure the State was spending US$180 million per week on subsidies, with a deficit that had been "galloping".
"To date we are still subsidizing", he said. His remarks came just before a new fuel price increase: projections anticipate a "dieselazo" (diesel price hike) of around $90 per liter for diesel.
