Published on 6/24/2026
Guinean President Mamadi Doumbouya announced a halt to the export of raw gold, in a move he said aimed to oblige companies to refine and process the metal within the country before selling it on international markets. The announcement came during a meeting that brought together industrial gold producers, artisans, and officials of gold purchasing offices last week.
Under the procedure, Guinean gold will only be exported after it has been melted, certified and processed within Guinea. “Guinean gold will be melted, certified and processed in Guinea before being exported to international markets, and any operator who continues to export raw gold will have its license suspended and its mining agreement terminated,” Doumbouya said. The authorities explained that the industrial and artisanal gold will be directed to the Nimba gold refinery being installed in the Gbesia neighborhood of the capital, Conakry.
The decision comes in a context characterized by the difficulty of controlling flows of the metal, as a report by Ecofin, an African news agency specializing in economic and financial information, indicates that the Guinean gold sector includes extensive artisanal mining activity and complex commercial networks that are difficult for the authorities to monitor, and that the country is used as a transit platform for part of the gold produced in neighboring West African countries. News reports quoted Doumbouya as saying that Guinea has the second largest gold reserve in West Africa, but its gold leaves daily in its raw form to be processed, approved and sold abroad.
According to data from the Ministry of Mines and Geology, Guinea exported 19,946 kilograms of industrial gold and 49,609 kilograms of artisanal gold (extracted with manual labor and simple tools) during the year 2025, according to Ecoven.
Broader mineral policy
The gold decision is inseparable from a broader policy followed by Guinea to increase local processing of its mineral resources. Since 2022, the authorities have pressured bauxite producers to fulfill their processing obligations locally by building alumina refineries, and are seeking a similar goal in the Simandou iron ore project by processing part of the future production within the country, according to “Ecoven.”
Guinea joins a regional trend in West Africa towards local refining of gold. In 2025, Mali began building a refinery near Bamako, Burkina Faso announced a similar project years ago, and Niger is proceeding with a refinery project. Ghana, the largest gold producer in Africa, hosts several refineries and seeks to process a larger share of its production, while Côte d’Ivoire announced last year a plan to build a refinery. However, Accra and Abidjan did not announce a comprehensive ban on the export of raw gold similar to what Conakry announced, according to Ecoven.
On the other hand, the Guinean government has not yet revealed the details of implementing the decision, as the timetable for implementation, the categories of producers concerned, the obligations of industrial operators and craftsmen, and whether transitional periods or exceptions will be adopted, according to “Ecoven.”
