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State revenue from gold mining companies in Mali rose 35% year on year in 2022 to a record 763.7 billion CFA francs ($1.3 billion) due to increased tax revenues, a mines ministry official said on Wednesday.
Mali is one of Africa’s top gold producers and is home to mining companies including Barrick Gold, B2GOLD, Resolute Mining and Hummingbird Resources.
Gold mining is a pillar of the country’s economy, accounting for about 9% of gross domestic product in 2021 and 2022 and providing more than half of total tax revenues last year.
Collating the full-year data habitually takes several months.
“The increase is mainly attributable to the great performance of all the collection services, which are the tax services, customs and estate services,” said Mamadou Sidibe, director of the ministry’s statistics unit.
Mali ended several tax exemptions which also helped it raise revenues significantly in 2021.
The military-led government is in talks with gold miners over proposed changes to its mining law that could see it boost state and private Malian interests in new projects to 35%, from up to 20% today, according to a draft of the new code seen by Reuters.
Mali’s industrial gold output was 66.2 tonnes in 2022, approximately a 4% increase from the previous year.
($1 = 578.7500 CFA francs)
(By Tiemoko Diallo and Nellie Peyton; Editing by David Holmes)
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