JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s gold output continues to decline, dropping 10,5 per cent year-on-year in May, official data released yesterday indicated.
The country’s gold production has been on a steady downward trend since the beginning of last year, declining 13 per cent in April, after a 7,6 per cent fall in March.According to Statistics South Africa, total mining production for the three months to May 2009 decreased by 9,8 per cent compared with the same period last year.’Gold mining is a shrinking industry, it’s been like that for almost a decade,’ said Dave Mohr, chief economist at Citadel.’We have run out of our high-grade gold deposits,’ said Mohr, adding that South Africa was likely to be overtaken by Australia in production rankings.South Africa in 2007 was eclipsed by China as the world’s largest gold producer. The country is now the world’s third-largest producer, having also slipped behind the United States.Gold is the country’s main foreign exchange earner.-Nampa-AFP
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