2 R eport from Our President I am pleased to present to you the 2018 annual report for AMEC It s been an important year for AMEC with e xpanding membership and mounting policy challenges in many jurisdictions AMEC remains steadfast as we strive to promote an environment for our members that fosters mineral e xploration and mining in A ustralia For A ustralia to remain internationally competitive and to attract capital and investment into A ustralia we must reduce the regulatory burden and lower the costs of doing business in A ustralia A ustralia needs to be more proactive in its approach to encouraging capital to support development of A ustralia s resources P olicy stability and approvals certainty are fundamental for long term resources investments Ad hoc changes to government approvals processes and the increasing use of lawfare to frustrate and delay projects will have lasting impacts on A ustralia and our trading partners if not addressed A ustralia holds an important but not unique position in the world of resources The repair of federal and state government budgets is premised on the A ustralian resources industry continuing to prosper However the national resource base will not support this without new large high quality mineral discoveries With a depleting resource base mineral e xploration success is vital to the future economic prosperity of A ustralia Encouragingly majors and midtier companies are again pursuing growth and restocking project pipelines With the right policy settings together with advances in e xploration technologies and approaches we may be at the dawn of a renaissance in greenfeld e xploration in A ustralia I congratulate the innovative junior e xplorers and midtier miners who mak e up the AMEC membership and who continue to apply inventive thinking and new technologies to achieve some outstanding results I would lik e to thank all AMEC members for their support and ongoing commitment to this resolute organisation AMEC thrives as a result of the voluntary contributions made by so many passionate supporters of the mining and e xploration community I sincerely thank the councillors standing committee and working group members for their contributions during 2018 Finally I would lik e to thank W arren and the wonderful AMEC team for their eforts during 2018 Our dedicated AMEC team does a fabulous job to mak e sure that the e xploration and mining industry s voice is heard Will R obinson President