Australia is the 7th best country in the world to mine, a global survey released on Thursday said. It was a big jump from Australia's 26th place in 2010 in ResourceStocks magazine's annual World Risk Survey.

The basis of the ranking is the potential risk scores made by over 1,000 resource sector professionals. The country with the lowest score out of a potential maximum high-risk score of 34 ranked highest.

The risks covered 11 areas, namely: financial risk, sovereign risk, land access, green tape, land claims, red tape, social risk, infrastructure, civil unrest, natural disasters and labour relations.

The top spot was retained by Finland with a low score of 7. Australia got a total score of 11.8 to place it on the seventh spot.

Rounding up the top 10 and their respective scores are: Chile (9.7), Burkina Fasso (11.), Botswana and Sweden (11.3), U.S. (11.4), Brazil (11.9), Canada (12.4) and Argentina (13.1)

Mining is booming in Australia with the sector mainly driving the country's economic growth. While other sectors such as retail and manufacturing are on a slowdown, investments continue to pour in Australia's mining sector at a time when gold prices continues to soar.

The federal government is proposing a minerals resource rent tax (MRRT) which is limited to ore and coal, but the Greens party is pushing for the inclusion of gold to add $1.8 billion to government coffers over a decade.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd put in place a 40 per cent resource super profits tax on all resources, but incumbent Prime Minister Julia Gillard removed the tax and proposed to replace it with the MRRT, which is one of the subjects of a government-organized tax forum on Oct. 4 and 5.

RELATED STORIES