Mali’s military government has signed an agreement with Russia that includes a gold refinery project in the Malian capital Bamako.
The deal involves building the refinery to process 200 tonnes of gold annually.
It is valid for four years and does not specify the timelines for the construction.
Gold is Mali’s leading export product by value and one of its largest contributors to economic growth, according the country’s mining ministry.
The project will allow Mali to control all gold production in the country and ‘correctly apply all taxes and duties’, according to the finance minister, Alousséni Sanou.
Read Also: Uganda Sacks Army Officers For Cowardice In Attack On Somalia
Mali has strengthened its relations with Russia in recent years following the military coup in 2021 and the withdrawal of French forces from the country a year later.
Recall that the United Nations had a few weeks ago explained that it had to pull its peacekeepers out of a camp in northern Mali earlier than planned, because ‘their lives were in danger’ and they could not risk it.
It says its last convoy left the camp in Tessalit on Saturday. Mali’s military leaders, who ordered the withdrawal of all UN and French troops earlier this year, says the Tessalit camp is now in its control.
Saturday’s withdrawal happened ‘in an extremely tense and degraded security context putting in danger the lives of personnel’, said the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, Minusma, in a statement which was sighted by Africa Today News, New York on Monday.
With fewer international troops on the ground in Mali, it is feared that the country will be subject to worsening violence from powerful armed groups – including Islamist militants and Tuareg militias.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that Mali had earlier told the UN that its 12,000 peacemakers need to leave, after 10 years countering Islamist militants in the country.