Sudan to establish new gold export rules
February 27, 2021 (KHARTOUM) – Gibril Ibrahim Minister of Finance and Economic Planning has pledged to develop new policies and mechanisms to tighten gold mining and export revenues.
Sudan, a gold producer, failed to crack down on smuggling and attract the much-needed foreign currency through the official channels for long years.
In June 2020, the government opened gold export to private companies provided they pay taxes and royalties. But the law exchange rate pushed them to continue to smuggle their production and declare small amounts.
With the recent pound floating, the government wants to ensure that they cease the bad habits and use the commercial banks and to declare all their production to the Sudanese authorities, as the country needs foreign currency.
On Sunday, Ibrahim held a meeting with the gold exporters to discuss ways of developing gold mining and attract the generated foreign currency into the country’s cash-strapped treasury.
The meeting was attended by the Ministry’s Undersecretary for Finance, Amna Abakr Abdel Rasoul, Director of the Customs Authority Bashir al-Taher, and Director of the Sudanese Mineral Resources Corporation Mubarak Ardol.
In a statement after the meeting, the Ministry of Finance said that Ibrahim discussed all problems and issues facing gold mining as a national resource of foreign currency.
“We must establish new and sound plans that regulate the gold mining, preserve the environment and take advantage of the traditional mining while setting up mechanisms that control gold exports to stabilize and unify the exchange rate,” said the minister.
Mubarak Ardol, Director of the Sudanese Company for Mineral Resources, said that traditional gold mining, which has 73 markets in Sudan, is the most vulnerable sectors to smuggling.
Al-Tahir, Director of Customs, for his part, pointed out the need to develop anti-smuggling means to keep pace with the development of the methods used by smugglers, adding that the smuggling has become widespread through multiple methods in airports, ports and borders.
According to Reuters, Sudan produced an estimated 93 tons of gold in 2018, making it the third biggest of gold in Africa.
The Gold Exporters Secretary-General Abdel-Mawli al-Gaddal expressed their support for the government’s economic reforms and called to set clear policies to crackdown smuggling operations.
(ST)