By Almot Maqolo.
HARARE – (News of The South) – Zimbabwe’s gold deliveries declined by 34% to 1.40 tonnes during the month of February from 2.13 tonnes recorded in comparable period last year, official data shows.
The month on month decline is mostly attributed to the wet weather that is traditionally associated with less mining activities. The yellow metal is now the highest single foreign currency earner ahead of tobacco.
Latest data from Fidelity Printers and Refiners shows small-scale miners delivered 0.6t, a significant drop from January’s 1.49t. Primary producers delivered 0.7t from 0.6t in the previous month which represents an increase of 10%.
Cumulatively, gold deliveries increased marginally to 3.951t during the first two months of 2020 from 3.907t reported in the comparable period last year.
“The increase can be attributed to deliveries brought through by buying agents that were issued with permits at the start of the year,” FPR stated.
In 2019, the southern African nation’s gold deliveries declined 16% to 27.6t from 33.2t in 2018. The figure was way below the 40t target. However, the country managed to reach its second highest record output. Last year’s output is the second best since 1980.
Last year, gold’s export earnings went down 28% to US$946 million from US$1.33 billion in 2018.
Previously, they has been calls to come up with another lucrative payment systems for miners to mitigate leakages. According to treasury chief Mthuli Ncube close to 34 tonnes of the yellow metal were smuggled to Rand Refinery in Cape Town.
Zimbabwe is targeting 100 tonnes of gold per year by 2023, a figure which is poised to help the sector to earn US$12 billion yearly. The Zimbabwe Miners Federation is on a drive to encourage its members to produce more so that by 2023 Zimbabwe can achieve gold deliveries of 100t per year.
The country’s artisanal and small scale mining sector is growing at a rapid rate, with miners more than doubling between the period 2012 and 2018.
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