Ghana tightens gold exports in push to keep more value at home

Accra, Ghana – Ghana is requiring certain gold exporters to refine gold dore locally before it can be shipped abroad, in a move aimed at keeping more of the value generated by the country’s gold industry at home.

Effective September 1, the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod) barred Self-Financing Aggregators (SFAs) from exporting gold dore purchased under arrangements with approved offtakers unless it is first refined in Ghana.

Dore is semi-refined gold that requires further processing before it can be turned into bullion.

The directive, issued by GoldBod’s Compliance Directorate on August 24, implements the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140), which established GoldBod as the authority overseeing the buying, selling, assaying, refining and export of gold in Ghana.

For Clement Edem Asare Morjah, chief executive of United Gold International Limited, a licensed SFA, the policy marks a significant change in how Ghana handles its most valuable natural resource.

“For the first time since independence, we have a government determined to make sure Ghana benefits from our biggest resource, gold,” he said.

Morjah said refining gold locally could allow Ghanaian companies to capture margins that have historically gone to overseas processors.

“In the entire value chain between refining and raw processed gold, the cost in between is a lot of margins. Historically, we have lost this to the outside world for decades. This is the first time deliberate government policy is trying to address this anomaly,” Morjah said.