Mining South Taranaki's iron-sand would add $1.1 billion a year to the value of goods and services produced in New Zealand, a submission to the seabed mining hearings says.
The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) is hearing applications from Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) to mine iron-sand from 66 square kilometres of seabed offshore from Patea. The matter received 13,733 submissions, most of them opposed to granting consent.
The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment supports the applications, and the hearings continue in Wellington this week.
The ministry's submission says New Zealand has been mining iron-sand since the 1960s. The west coast of the North Island has some of the largest iron-sand deposits in the world, stretching 480km from Kaipara to Whanganui.
There has been increasing interest in mining them since the early 2000s, and TTR's applications are the most advanced.