Ghana is making a major move to keep more of the value from its gold industry inside the country.
From September 1, all Self-Financing Aggregators will be required to refine their gold in Ghana before it can be exported. The GoldBod says it will no longer approve export requests for unrefined gold doré.
Refining must take place at GoldBod-approved facilities, with final export approval only granted after regulatory compliance has been verified.
The policy could mean more jobs, greater investment in local refining and higher value retained within Ghana, rather than exporting raw gold and allowing other countries to capture more of the processing value.
For a country that is one of Africa’s biggest gold producers, this could be a significant shift from simply mining and exporting to processing and capturing more value at home.
Ghana has the gold. Now the question is: can it build enough refining capacity to turn this policy into a real economic advantage?