Under new rules, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) will
purchase gold from licensed local traders and producers at the world
market rate and sell it to retailers in the impoverished Horn of
Africa nation, officials said on Friday.
Ethiopia produces about four tonnes of gold a year, about one
tonne of which the government estimates has been lost annually to
black marketeers in neighbouring countries, India and the Middle
East, since trade was banned in 1977 by the Soviet-backed government of
Mengistu Haile Mariam.
Mengistu took power in 1974, overthrowing emperor Haile
Selassie, and imposing strict communist economic controls, including
a centrally planned economy. He was toppled in 1991, but the trade
ban remained.
Black market
Gold dealers in Addis Ababa, who said the ban and resulting
black market trade had destroyed their businesses, breathed a sigh
of relief as the sales resumed.
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"The black market took over and local miners, searching for better prices, started moving across the border"
Mekonnen Assefa,
jewelery shop owner |
"We used to buy gold from the NBE," said Mekonnen Assefa, a
jewellery shop owner. "Once the communists came to power, we were
denied that right.
"The black market took over and local miners, searching for
better prices, started moving across the border," he said.
Another dealer, Muhammad Aman, echoed that complaint.
"Traditional miners preferred to go across the border or engage
in illicit trade inside Ethiopia that was hurting them, us and the
country at-large," he said.
Tonnes of gold being smuggled out of the country have been
intercepted at Addis Ababa's Bole Airport and border points
in recent years, according to customs officials.