Zim extends incentive for large gold miners

The Zimbabwean government will continue offering an incentive for the country’s major gold miners to produce beyond set output targets.
Bloomberg quoted deputy mines minister Polite Kambamura as saying Harare will allow large producers that exceed their targets to receive 80% of the payment for the additional output in foreign currency.
The existing policy allows miners to receive 60% of their earnings in foreign currency and the remaining 40% in the local currency.
Chamber of Mines chief executive Isaac Kwesu backed the extension of the incentive.
“Overall, it’s a good policy,” he was quoted as saying.
“But for those that are already operating at full throttle, they will not be able to benefit from it.”
Meanwhile, Kambamura told the business publication that the Zimbabwean government engaged two local lenders that could help provide $1 billion of funding needed by the gold industry over the next five years.
Gold exports are the third leading foreign currency earner in Zimbabwe after platinum and remittances.
Zimbabwe wants the gold sector to account for a third of the targeted $12 billion the mining industry will generate in 2023.
Gold deliveries to Fidelity Gold Refinery rose just above 60% to 15,972.52 kg in the first half of 2022 compared to 9,954.67 kg during the same period last year, according to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).

Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished