Ghana, Africa’s top gold producer, increased output by 23.41 percent to 5.94 million ounces in 2025 from 4.82 million ounces a year earlier, the Ghana Chamber of Mines said in its 2025 Annual Report released late Friday in the capital Accra.
The Chamber’s outgoing President Michael Edem Akafia, who presented the report, said the performance was due to the high output in the small-scale gold sector.
“Small-scale gold production rose by 63.82 percent from 1.9 million ounces in 2024 to 3.11 million ounces in 2025,” Akafia stated.
According to him, the high production was attributable to reforms, including the establishment of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod). “As a result, small-scale mining accumulated 52.4 percent of national output, overtaking large-scale producers for the first time in more than a century.”
Akafia disclosed that large-scale gold production declined by 2.98 percent to 2.83 million ounces during the year under review, down from 2.92 million ounces the previous year.
Regarding the impact of mining on the country’s economy, the official said the domestic gold purchase program had become a critical mechanism for strengthening the country’s external buffers.
Moreover, gold-producing members of the chamber had sold 312,923 ounces of gold to the Bank of Ghana, which caused the central bank’s gold holding to increase from 18.6 tons in 2024 to 37.1 tons in 2025, said the official.
“Sector players paid a total of 4.2 billion U.S. dollars to local vendors, 2.1 billion dollars in taxes and levies, 720.1 million dollars in employee emoluments, and 88.6 million dollars in community-level investments,” the official added.
He projected output for 2026 to reach at least 6.0 million ounces, with more investment going into the sector. According to the Bank of Ghana’s data released in January, the country earned a total of 20.97 billion dollars from gold exports in 2025.