Thursday, 26th May 2005 (3431 views)

A new report from the World Gold Council has revealed that gold mining is becoming ever more important to developing and indebted nations.

The report, entitled A Touch of Gold, reveals that gold output from heavily indebted countries grew by 84 per cent between 1994 and 2004, and developing countries were responsible for almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of the global gold output.

"The gold industry is of tremendous and growing importance to highly indebted countries," WGC chief executive James Burton told BBC News.

As well as providing considerable revenues for countries such as Mali and Ghana - gold accounted for more than half all the goods exported from Mali last year - mining contributes to the social and economic infrastructure, the report claims.

"Gold is generally associated with the rich and yet this latest report proves that, in relative terms, it is actually much more important to the poor," Mr Burton stated.

The WGC also called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) not to sell its gold reserves as a way to fund debt relief for poor countries, arguing that the action could actually cause devaluation of gold, having disastrous effects on developing countries' gold mining industries.

 

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