Gold for oil policy will increase balance of payments, reduce depreciation – PMMC

The Managing Director of the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC), Nana Akwasi Awuah, has stated that trading gold for oil is a good initiative that will help solve the country’s balance of payment difficulties and deal with depreciation.

According to him, the policy will ensure that Ghanaians have more interest in gold trading in the coming days.

The MD of PMMC, Nana Akwasi Awuah, said gold smuggling could be one of the major threats to the newly introduced policy.

“I know that in times past, there have been some issues about some private entities that have attempted to use gold to trade in this country, the popular Menzgold is a reminder of that and so Ghanaians are quite skeptical about investing in gold,” Awuah was quoted by Asaase News.

“But we believe that once we are able to sanitise the sector and we are able to build confidence and trust, we should be able to encourage more Ghanaians to come forward and trade in the commodity,” he said.

In a statement issued by the PMMC on Monday, January 16, 2023, it said: “To implement the directives, the PMMC shall establish offices in selected mining regions, the first of which has already been set up in Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region.

“All existing gold trading and export license holders (‘implementing partners’) shall continue their usual business activities except that the gold so purchased by them from the small-scale sector shall not be exported. The gold purchased by the implementing partners shall be sold to PMMC,” the statement said.

SSD/BOG