Mitsubishi to Invest $888 Million in Peru Copper Mine

Japan's largest trading company Mitsubishi Corporation plans to invest around 70 billion yen ($888 million) to acquire an 18.1 percent stake in a copper mine in southern Peru.

Production at the mine - part of the Quellaveco project and majority owned by London-based Anglo American, which holds the remaining 81.9 percent stake - is scheduled to begin in 2016.

The mine holds an estimated 10 million tons of copper reserves and is expected to produce 225,000 tons of the red metal annually.

Mitsubishi's proportional share of that output, to be sold in Japan and the rest of Asia would be around 40,000 tons a year.

The Japanese corporation already operates copper mines in Chile and Peru and produces nearly 140,000 tons of the mineral annually, making it the Asian country's No. 1 company in that sector.