Even though the focus of the report released this week is on formal, large scale mining, the council acknowledges that artisanal and small-scale (ASM) gold miners can play a significant role in local economies

Speaking to MINING.com, John Mulligan, head of member and investor relations at the WGC, said that even though the focus of the report released this week is on formal, large scale mining, the council acknowledges that artisanal and small-scale (ASM) gold miners can play a significant role in local economies and communities of several developing countries.

 

The main issue, he says, is that reliable and comparable data on the socio-economic impacts of artisanal gold production across different producing countries is not currently available.

 

“It is important that moves to increase transparency in the gold market do not unintentionally further marginalize ASM producers or drive them further in to the grip of exploitative middle men or criminal networks,” Mulligan says.

 

Interestingly enough, the countries for which gold mining represented, in 2013, a very substantial part (percentage) of GDP (>5%) were mostly African and Asians, with the only exception of Peru.

Source : MINING. COM