Cumulative foreign investments in the nation’s mining sector has totaled $14.2 billion in the last 18 years – from 2000 to 2018.
This is according to the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI), in its yet to be launched report analysing the resulting revenue impact of some GHEITI-inspired fiscal reforms implemented by government in the extractive sector.
GHEITI in its report notes investment in the mining sector has grown steadily, rising from $231.78 million in the year 2000 to $797 million in 2005 and peaking at $1.4 billion in 2012, noting that although foreign inflows to the sector has seen some volatility over the years, inflows have been on a steady rise.
Ghana is home to 23 large scale and over 300 registered small-scale mining companies, gold production in the country in recent years has seen a steady rise.
In 2018, the country overtook South Africa, to become the leading producer of gold in Africa, largely on account of the industrial dispute between some gold producers and organized labour as well as suspension of production by some mines due to increasing cost of production in South Africa.
Gold in 2019, became Ghana’s most valuable export comprising of about 93 percent of the country’s total mineral exports in the same year. The mineral subsector has been the leading foreign exchange earner and a major contributor to the country’s Balance of Payment (BoP) for several years.
In 2018, the country’s GDP grew by 6.3 percent, with mining and quarrying accounting for 2.8 per cent.
Overall, the mining sector in Ghana remains buoyant and promising for employment opportunities and government revenues as the country’s gold production is projected to grow by some 8.3 percentage points by the end of 2024.
Leading data and analytics company, GlobalData, posits that Ghana’s total gold production for 2021 is forecasted to reach 3.6 million ounces further reaching 3.9 million ounces by 2024.
The increment in production, according to GlobalData, is attributed to the increase in production from AngloGold’s Obuasi redevelopment project.
