Linking our demand for goods and services with local economies
is essential to create private sector growth and jobs in the
regions where we operate. We recognise that the gap between the
capacities of businesses in local communities and our procurement
requirements is often significant. Therefore, we have various
initiatives underway to develop local suppliers and increase our
local procurement.
This initiative provides a training and qualification programme
for local businesses, particularly small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs), with the objective of promoting economic
development by supplying us with products and services.
We have also initiated supplier development programmes in Chile.
Financing of these initiatives is provided equally by our copper
operations, Chile’s Economic Development Agency and
participating companies. The initiatives benchmark performance,
train suppliers in different areas of business management, support
improvements in coordination and registration of suppliers and
design, and implement continuous improvement systems for
suppliers.
We have initiated a project to investigate ways to support and
encourage local procurement in a streamlined way. The project aims
to put in place consistent local procurement strategies, processes
and scoring mechanisms so as to ensure we achieve common
preferential procurement goals that benefit our stakeholders at
national, regional and local levels. A multi-disciplinary team,
spanning across our operations, was formed in 2009 to focus and
collaborate on local procurement. Throughout 2010 we will be
learning from and building on best practice with regard to
preferential local procurement in our major countries of operation,
such as Brazil, Chile, South Africa, Peru and Australia.
For more information on local procurement in your area, please
contact us.