Fol­low­ing re­ports of thieves cut­ting util­i­ty lines in search of cop­per, the Gov­ern­ment has ef­fec­tive­ly banned the ex­port of the com­mod­i­ty for one year.

The Gov­ern­ment com­mu­ni­cat­ed the ban in a le­gal no­tice dat­ed Ju­ly 10 un­der an or­der cit­ed as the Pro­hi­bi­tion (Car­riage Coast­wise, Im­por­ta­tion and Ex­por­ta­tion) Or­der, 2026.

The or­der came in­to ef­fect on Ju­ly 10, 2026, and ex­pires on Ju­ly 9, 2027.

In a news re­lease pub­lished on Face­book, the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism said, “This mea­sure forms part of the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to the in­creas­ing in­ci­dents of cop­per theft and van­dal­ism af­fect­ing pub­lic and pri­vate in­fra­struc­ture. These ac­tiv­i­ties have dis­rupt­ed the de­liv­ery of es­sen­tial pub­lic ser­vices and im­posed sig­nif­i­cant op­er­a­tional and fi­nan­cial costs on State agen­cies and pri­vate sec­tor en­ti­ties.”

The or­der states, “The ex­por­ta­tion of cop­per is pro­hib­it­ed ex­cept by man­u­fac­tur­ers li­censed by the Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for trade, to ex­port cop­per as a by-prod­uct of man­u­fac­tur­ing ar­ti­cles or as sur­plus ma­te­ri­als not re­quired for man­u­fac­tur­ing them.

“A man­u­fac­tur­er shall be el­i­gi­ble for a li­cence to ex­port cop­per pur­suant to para­graph 1 where:

(a) the man­u­fac­tur­er pro­vides a let­ter in­di­cat­ing the source from which the cop­per was ob­tained and de­tail­ing:

(i) the type, val­ue and weight of cop­per raw ma­te­r­i­al im­port­ed or pur­chased lo­cal­ly; and

(ii) the quan­ti­ty of cop­per be­ing ex­port­ed, which should not ex­ceed the quan­ti­ty of cop­per raw ma­te­r­i­al im­port­ed or pur­chased lo­cal­ly;

(b) the man­u­fac­tur­er pro­vides a pack­ing list or in­voice which de­tails the spe­cif­ic de­scrip­tion, quan­ti­ty and val­ue of the cop­per be­ing ex­port­ed;

(c) a site vis­it is con­duct­ed by the Trade Li­cence Unit of the Min­istry with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for trade to en­sure that the man­u­fac­tur­er is in­volved in man­u­fac­tur­ing and gen­er­at­ing cop­per as ei­ther:

(i) a by-prod­uct of man­u­fac­tur­ing ar­ti­cles; or

(ii) sur­plus ma­te­r­i­al not re­quired for man­u­fac­tur­ing ar­ti­cles;

(d) on or af­ter the com­ing in­to force of this para­graph, the man­u­fac­tur­er sub­mits to an in­spec­tion by the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion of the cop­per to be ex­port­ed, whether or not the cop­per had pre­vi­ous­ly been in­spect­ed by the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion; and

(e) in the case of a man­u­fac­tur­er who is a first time ap­pli­cant for a li­cence to ex­port cop­per pur­suant to para­graph 1, the man­u­fac­tur­er pro­vides a com­pa­ny pro­file which in­cludes:

(i) the type of busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty;

(ii) the sourc­ing of in­put;

(iii) its process­es;

(iv) its prod­ucts;

(v) its by-prod­ucts; and

(vi) its pro­duc­tion lev­els; and

(f) in the case of a man­u­fac­tur­er who is a re­peat ap­pli­cant for a li­cence to ex­port cop­per pur­suant to para­graph 1, the man­u­fac­tur­er pro­vide:

(i) an ac­count of the util­i­sa­tion of the last li­cence is­sued; and

(ii) copies of its ship­ping doc­u­ments, such as the ex­port of ship­ment, Cari­com in­voice and Bill of Lad­ing.”