KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 7 — Lynas Corp said today it is confident about Putrajaya’s process to renew its operating licence as it is not "hiding any dirty secrets.”

Its chief executive officer Amanda Lacaze told Bloomberg in an interview that the rare earths miner is aware that the government cares about economic development, and that its "safe and sustainable” operations will mean that there won’t be any environmental trade-offs.

"We engage in this with a great degree of confidence, because we know we are not hiding any dirty secrets,” Lacaze reportedly said when asked for comment during a mining industry forum in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

"The government cares about economic development, and because of the way we have been designed they don’t have to make any environmental trade-offs because we operate in a way that is safe and sustainable,” she added.

Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad confirmed last week that the government was dropping its requirement for Lynas Corp to repatriate its water leach purification (WLP) residue as a precondition for its licence renewal due by September 1.

Instead, the firm was directed to explore a PDF facility to treat its rare-earths processing residue.

The decision was a departure from the ruling coalition’s insistence shortly after winning the general election that Australian mining firm must remove its WLP residue from the country.