June 24, 2025 - Mexico will not grant new mining concessions, President Claudia Sheinbaum said June 23.

The government will review existing concessions for environmental impact to determine how much exploration can continue, Sheinbaum added.

Mexico is the top global producer of silver and a significant miner of gold, copper, lead and zinc, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. But Sheinbaum's restriction on concessions marks a continuation of the policy set by her predecessor, former President Andres Manuel López Obrador.

"There is not going to be another new concession -- no, there are no new mining concessions," Sheinbaum said at a press conference. "And the secretary of environment and natural resources, Alicia Bárcenas, is working to solve the existing problem of contamination that remains in the mines."

"The existing mines will be checked for their environmental impact," Sheinbaum said.

CAMIMEX, an industry trade group, did not respond to a request for comment, but the group has said in the past that the industry lost investments valued at $4.5 billion during López Obrador's time in office.

The president emphasized the importance of producing lithium in Mexico, which involves open-pit mining that requires an environmental impact report to exploit lithium in the state of Sonora.

"If there's open-pit mining, it must minimize environmental impact and comply with current laws," Sheinbaum said. "For example, copper has a significant impact, so we need to assess how we can reduce that impact."

Also, the president said Mexico should refine its own copper and not just export it to China.

"We should produce copper products, everything that comes after the copper mine," Sheinbaum said.

Earlier in the week, Secretary of the Economy Marcelo Ebrard told a mining industry meeting that the sector is at the center of decisions for the security of Mexico's economy.

"Our president wants us to make an extraordinary effort to increase our technical and technological capacity, to think about new 21st-century mining under these new circumstances, which must be compatible with sustainability and the well-being of communities," Ebrard said at a press conference June 18.