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Mohamed’s Trading is top gold exporter for 2018
Lombard Street gold dealer, Mohamed’s Enterprise, is continuing its dominant contribution to the mining sector.
Last year, the company cemented its places as the leading declarer and number one exporter of gold.
According to Chairman of the Guyana Gold Board, Gabriel Lall, the dealer would have recorded the highest exports, a few thousand ounces more than El Dorado Trading, another dealer which has been performing well and is second.
Company officials said that company purchased in excess of 124,000 ounces in 2018, more than the previous year.
For Mohamed’s Enterprise, the sale of the gold would bring back in excess of US$150M, much needed foreign currency for Guyana.
Last year was a tough year for miners who have been recorded a good last decade while prices largely remained over US$1,200 per ounce mark.
This attracted significant investments in the sector and miners have been cashing in. However, new taxes and poor roads last year dented the performance.
The company called for better infrastructure and improved security.
During his budget speech late last year, Finance Minister, Winston Jordan, had warned that the expected expansion in the mining sector is anticipated to be curtailed, in 2018, by a decline in gold declarations by small and medium scale miners, who accounted for over 64 percent of all declarations, in 2017.
As a result, he said, gold declaration will contract by 13.1 percent, in 2018, despite an expected expansion in the declarations of large scale miners by 4.3 percent.
He also said that the position on the merchandise trade account, from a deficit of US$206.6 million, in 2017, to a higher deficit of US$299.7 million, in 2018, is anticipated to result from an increase in total payments for merchandise imports, 12 together with lower total earnings from merchandise exports.
Biggest dealer: Nazar “Shell” Mohamed
“The latter is projected to decline by 3.1 percent to US$1,392.1 million, largely on account of lower receipts from gold and sugar exports. The downturn in gold export earnings is anticipated to be as a result of lower declarations,” Jordan said in his budget speech.
Foreign currency earnings in 2017 had reportedly topped the US$800M mark despite lower declarations.
The figure of US$817M had been slightly down from US$830M in 2016, making gold the country’s biggest foreign currency earner.
Declarations as at December 31, 2017 were 652,876 ounces compared to the 712,706 ounces from the previous year. That meant that despite almost 60,000 ounces less, the industry only managed to fall short by about US$13M.
At the end of 2016, in addition to the Guyana Gold Board, there were nine companies licensed to deal in gold.
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