Weekly Report - 09 August 2012 (WR-12-31)

Relations between Suriname and Guyana have long been framed by age-old territorial disputes, but in recent months they have been growing tense over what is in the ground rather than the ground itself: gold to be precise. The Guyanese government has been complaining loudly that lower gold royalties collected by the Surinamese government have led to smuggling of gold out of Guyana, as well as associated violence and environmental degradation. Suriname’s President Desi Bouterse is now responding.

The Surinamese daily De Ware Tijd recently pointed out that the small-scale gold mining industry exported nearly 19,000kg in 2011, at a value of US$914m. This raised a total of US$9.2m in royalties and US$22.3m in additional taxes for the State. To put this into context, the largest gold mining company in Suriname, Rosebel Goldmines of Canada’s multinational IamGold, produced some 12,000kg of gold in 2011, although this generated US$146.4m for the State from additional taxes on returns and income tax.

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