Brazil's mining sector is expected to be I fully opened up to foreign capital investment by July following May's vote in the country's Chamber of Deputies to abolish the distinction between Brazilian companies of national and of foreign capital, as had been included in the country's 1988 Constitution. The changes, if passed, should give a particular boost to the industrial minerals' sector, which fell on quiet times during the recession of the late 1980s. According to Elmer Prata Salomao, director general of the country's national mining dept (DNPM), industrial minerals is the mining sector expected to grow most quickly over the next few years. This is because its fortunes are directly linked to industrial growth, which has reached 10 percent in the first-half of 1995, following the launch of Brazil's new currency, the Real, and the economic stabilisation plan in the second-half of 1994.
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