Market Analysis: GOLD 4/29/2014

What's The New Code?

Cote d'Ivoire's investor-friendly new mining code, developed in close collaboration with its mining industry, will accelerate the country's emergence as asignificant gold producer, Randgold Resources chief executive Mark Bristow told a media briefing here today. Randgold operates the Tongon gold mine in Cote d'Ivoire and has extensive exploration holdings elsewhere in the country.

Bristow noted that the depletion of the world's mature goldfields had shifted gold miners' focus to new regions, notably in Africa. Despite the continuing fallback in supply from South Africa, once the world's largest gold producer, Africa still accounted for 20% of global gold output, thanks to the recent growth of the gold mining industries elsewhere on the continent, notably in West Africa."Considering the continent's vast mineral wealth, however, it still has a long way to go to deliver on its full potential," Bristow said."Investors are deterred by the political and infrastructural risks associated with Africa, but in Cote d'Ivoire we have shown how these challenges can be overcome by a true partnership between a mining company, the government and the people."