Kyrgyz foreign minister meets GoldBod chief as Ghana proposes cooperation pact

Pinned summary · as of 17:36

Jeenbek Kulubayev, the foreign minister of Kyrgyzstan, paid a courtesy visit to Sammy Gyamfi, chief executive of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), to talk about cooperation on gold. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, who holds the foreign affairs portfolio in Ghana, floated a formal framework agreement to steer technical exchanges between the two countries.

What we know

• Mr Kulubayev met Mr Gyamfi in a courtesy call, and the talks covered technical cooperation, investment and knowledge-sharing between Kyrgyzstan and Ghana, according to MyJoyOnline and Chale News.
• Mr Gyamfi walked the Kyrgyz side through the reforms GoldBod has carried out since it was set up in 2025.
• Mr Gyamfi said the gold GoldBod takes in from artisanal and small-scale miners has grown to 104 metric tonnes, up from about 60 tonnes before.
• He also said small-scale mining earned Ghana roughly US$10.8 billion in foreign exchange during 2025.
• Mr Kulubayev said his country has begun reforming a gold industry that was largely unregulated for some 25 years.
• Mr Ablakwa put forward the idea of a formal framework agreement to organise technical exchanges and links between institutions, with later contacts that would bring in investors, entrepreneurs and industry specialists.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

• ?
  MyJoyOnline reported that Kyrgyzstan is looking at the GoldBod model as it tries to formalise its gold trade, tighten regulation and draw investment into gold and critical minerals; Mr Kulubayev's interest in the model was reported by that publication alone.
• ?
  Chale News reported that no date has been set for signing any such agreement and that officials have not said what form the technical exchanges would take.

Why it matters for Ghana

Gold is among Ghana's biggest export earners, and how much of it passes through formal channels affects the foreign exchange available to the country. A cooperation agreement could make GoldBod's approach a reference for other gold-producing countries and open doors for Ghanaian investors and mining experts. For small-scale miners in mining communities, the figures cited show how large the sector has become to the national economy.