Investors took note and went elsewhere.

In April Mr. Correa announced that he wanted Ecuador to join a free-trade agreement with the European Union that Colombia and Peru have already signed, combined with an investment-guarantee treaty.

The new law imposes an 8% ceiling on previously open-ended royalties, and streamlines the permits required.

With February's presidential election out of the way, Mr. Correa has changed course.

The government touted its mining regime as the most lucrative for the state anywhere in the world.

Companies won't pay windfall taxes until they have recouped their investments.

The push to woo foreign investors is overdue.

Fresh into his third presidential term, Rafael Correa is aiming at last to unlock Ecuador's underground wealth of gold, silver, copper and other metals.

A comprehensive mining reform in 2009 wrapped companies in red tape and clobbered them with taxes.

In 2012 Ecuador received less foreign direct investment per person than any other country in Latin America, according to the UN.

Ecuadorians "live poorly amid incomparable riches", Alexander von Humboldt said to have noted on his 19th century adventures.

The new-found pragmatism irks some in the cabinet.

Left-wingers such as Fander Falconi, the planning minister, would prefer Ecuador to join Mercosur, a customs union of more statist countries.

The government has also indicated that it is planning to return to the international debt market, five years after it defaulted on $3.2 billion of sovereign bonds.

Environmentalists and indigenous groups worry that the more liberal mining regime will lead to overdevelopment and pollution (the new law prohibits the use of mercury, but not cyanide). Thank you.