* Kazakhstan keen to develop metals after cashing in on oil
* First auctions for licences seen this year
* Precious, non-ferrous metals a priority (Writes through with fresh official quotes)
By Raushan Nurshayeva
ASTANA, April 18 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan on Thursday lifted a moratorium on issuing new mineral exploration licences to develop new deposits in the non-oil sector and invited investors to start bidding in May for rights to develop its vast mineral wealth.
Kazakhstan, a resource-rich Central Asian nation five times the size ofFrance, imposed a four-year moratorium on issuing new licences for subsoil use in 2008 as it was adopting a new tax code, saying it needed "to put this sector in order."
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the country of 17 million with a firm hand for more than two decades, has urged the government to lift the ban on new licences after the moratorium expired last year.
The landlocked country holds uranium reserves second only to Australia's. It also has the world's largest chromium reserves and substantial copper, iron ore and zinc deposits.
Less than 15 percent of its explored metals reserves are in production, official data show, and despite its prospects Kazakhstan receives about 1 percent of global investment in metals exploration.
"In May we will start accepting bids from potential investors for an open tender for licences of mineral deposits," Kazakh Industry
and New Technologies Minister Aset Isekeshev told a mining conference.
and New Technologies Minister Aset Isekeshev told a mining conference.
"We expect to hold such auctions already in the current year, which we believe should become a symbolic event for all potential domestic and foreign investors after the crisis ... We hope there will emerge many new projects already this year."
He gave no further detail.
Timur Toktabayev, deputy head of the industry ministry's geology and subsoil use department, told Reuters: "Of course, our priorities are non-ferrous and precious metals. Iron-ore and coaldeposits (are to be auctioned) as well."
Kazakhstan, holder of 3 percent of the world's recoverable oil reserves and the second-largest post-Soviet oil producer after Russia, has attracted around $170 billion in foreign direct investment since the early 1990s, mostly in hydrocarbons.
The moratorium concerned subsoil licences for all new mineral deposits, including oil and gas ones.
Yet the authorities stress that now they would like to see vast investment flowing primarily into exploration and development of metals.
"Up to now, the focus has been on hydrocarbons, oil and gas, which are the locomotive of oureconomy," Bazarbai Nurabayev, head of the industry ministry's geology and subsoil use department, told the mining conference earlier on Thursday.
"This is where investors would mainly go, putting large funds into exploration works, discovering new reserves and new deposits. Now the state is taking measures to spur the development of the mining sector."
Nurabayev said the government planned to free those investing in geological exploration from value added taxes. (Additional reporting by Mariya Gordeyeva in Almaty; writing by Dmitry Solovyov; editing by James Jukwey)
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