Gold production by artisan miners in Ethiopia has been 37% less than projected output in the just concluded financial year.
The artisan miners produced 8327 kilograms of gold as opposed to the 13,200 kilograms anticipated by the Ministry of mines.
The revenue earned from the export of gold however was only 17% below the projected revenue due to the increased price of gold on the international market. Consequently the revenue was just 88 million US dollars short of the 528 million US dollars projected by the ministry noted a report from the MoM.
The performance registered in the reporting period, however, exceed that of the previous year with the total amount exported (6,515 kilograms) surpassing what was exported last year (5250 kilograms).
The revenue raised from gold exports in this last fiscal year was 116.8 million US dollars more than what was earned in the previous budget period.The gold produced did not meet up to projections because of a range of challenges including land degradation in mining areas, the absence of access to essential modern mining equipment to artisans and uncertainty regarding the number of people engaged in traditional mining in each gold producing region as there is no legal framework governing the work of the artisan miners said a geologist who was a member of the team of exports that travelled to the mining sites to determine the reasons for the disparity between projections and actual production.
Source: Addis Fortune
