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Suriname move to increase gold tax may take shine off Guyana

Jul 18, 2012 News

Suriname has announced plans to raise its royalty payments from gold sales within weeks, a move likely to make it less profitable for especially gold from Guyana to be smuggled there.
Suriname’s newspaper, De Ware Tijd, yesterday reported that the government is aiming to raise the one per cent royalty to three per cent.
While the country’s Parliament will still have to approve the new Gold Law, in effect it will still allow Suriname’s prices to be higher than Guyana.
Gerold Dompig, of the Presidential Gold Commission, hopes that the new rates will be in place within two months’ time.
Both French Guiana and Guyana have frequently complained about the uncontrolled smuggling of gold from their territory to Suriname.
Miners from the neighboring countries consider it more attractive to sell their gold in Suriname, since the one percent royalty being levied there is far less than the four to six percent charged in their own countries.
Guyana’s Minister of Natural Resources Robert Persaud, in particular, never fails to mention this thorny issue in the local media.
In 2011, Guyana registered less than 6,000 kilos of gold from their mines, considerably less than the nearly 19,000 kilos registered in Suriname over the same period.
The Guyanese authorities believe that they see only one-third of their actual gold production due to smuggling.
“It is just a two percent hike,” says Dompig, emphasizing that the state is increasing the royalties, but intentionally in such a way that Suriname’s remain lower than its neighbours’.
In the 1990s, the roles were actually reversed, when Suriname lost most of its gold to neighbouring countries because of its higher royalties.
Dompig states the new gold law will emphasize the obligation to pay taxes in all stages in the gold sector, from the miner to service providers and suppliers.
With the risks from robberies and seizures from authorities likely, the increase in the royalty may very well reduce the gold smuggling from Guyana.
There have been reports of seizure of smuggled Guyana gold in Suriname.

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