Australian miner OZ Minerals said Wednesday it had received the official green light to sell its Martabe gold and silver project in Indonesia to a Hong Kong-listed investment company.
Australia's foreign investments review board found the 211-million-US-dollar sale of Martabe to China Sci-Tech (CST) posed no foreign investment objections, OZ said.
"This is an important step towards completion of the sale of Martabe and we continue to work with CST in order to complete the transaction towards the end of June," OZ chairman Barry Cusack said in a statement to the market.
Canberra last month approved a revised 850-million-US-dollar takeover offer for the debt-laden Australian company from China's Minmetals.
That offer excluded the Martabe project in North Sumatra and Australia's Prominent Hill mine in South Australia.
The proceeds from the sale of the Indonesian project would make an important contribution to addressing OZ Minerals' refinancing issues, the firm's CEO Andrew Michelmore said when announcing the proposed CST deal in April.
OZ said the sale was still contingent on the approval of CST shareholders and certain of OZ's lenders.
State-owned Chinese corporations have made a number of bids for Australian mining assets in recent months, including a proposed 19.5-billion-US-dollar investment in mining giant Rio Tinto by Chinalco, which is still under review.
Beijing's interest has sparked intense debate in Australia over whether to allow Chinese state-owned entities to increase their control over the country's resources.
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