THE MINERAL ECONOMY OF GHANA

From the 5th to 13th century, the ancient Kingdom of Ghana, was a major trading empire, trading gold for salt, swords, and textiles from North Africa. From the earliest recorded gold production in 1493 through 2002, approximately 2,698 t of gold have been mined in Ghana. Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast, became independent from Britain in 1957. Nationalized in 1961, the mining sector went through a decline in productivity during the 1970s and 1980s. During the period 1963-80, fifty Peace Corps Volunteer Geologists were assigned to the Ghana Geological Survey, chiefly involved with geologic quadrangle mapping and reconnaissance geochemistry. This contributed to the intellectual infrastructure available to the exploration and mining companies during the mining boom of the 1990s. With World Bank help, Ghana passed the 1986 Mining Law, which helped attracted more than $4 billion in foreign investment to the sector through the end of 2000. This new investment was put into upgrading bauxite and manganese production capacities, revitalizing Ashanti Goldfields operations, and into extensive exploration leading to the opening of 10 new gold mines between 1990 and 1999, which increased gold production to 79.9 t/yr from 16.8 t/yr during this period. Ghana is the second largest gold producer in Africa after South Africa, and a significant producer of aluminum, bauxite, diamond, and manganese, although power shortages have been a constraint on aluminum smelter production. Mineral commodity exports accounted for $939.8 million out of a total of $1.98 billion of all merchandise export trade in 2001.