Luxury homes, new BMWs and Land Rover Defenders: gold price surge brings riches to rural Zimbabwe

These days, luxury houses are popping up in rural areas, new BMWs and Land Rover Defenders cruise the street, and many bars have begun selling whisky by the bottle only.

By Bloomberg

The three-year surge in gold prices, driven to a record this year as US President Donald Trump’s trade war escalates, is driving a massive boom in Africa’s small-scale gold production.

The evidence of the newfound riches is evident in Zimbabwe, where about 4% of the population is involved in mining activities. These days, luxury houses are popping up in rural areas, new BMWs and Land Rover Defenders cruise the street, and many bars have begun selling whisky by the bottle only.

The country’s more than 700,000 informal, or artisanal, miners are flocking to gold mining belts, which is throwing a lifeline to an economy that’s been in turmoil since the turn of the century.

In the first five months of this year, those miners almost doubled the metal they delivered to a state refinery from a year earlier to more than 11 tons, boosting the country’s export income. At the current pace of production, the country could earn a billion dollars more from gold shipments this year than in 2024.

“The prices have been very favourable to the miners, which is something we are so happy about,” said Wellington Takavarasha, the president of the Zimbabwe Artisanal and Small-Scale for Sustainable Mining Council.

“This year is looking very good. We must capitalise on this rally.”

Zimbabwe’s central bank is now paying cash for gold deliveries, targeting a record 40 tons of purchases this year after it earned $2.5 billion in 2024, a 37% jump from the year before.

Artisanal producers supplied three-quarters of the metal delivered in April, whereas a few years ago, the majority of their output would have been smuggled out of the country.

With rising gold prices and collaboration from mine owners, artisanal miners are now also being welcomed onto mining sites to boost production.

Facing outdated equipment and limited funds, mine owners are encouraging these miners to switch from traditional panning to using tools like picks and shovels to extract more gold ore quickly. As a result, operations like the Macoomber 7 mine have seen a massive increase in ore and milling output since inviting artisanal workers onto their property.

For artisanal miners who, until recently, were eking out a living by camping out and panning for gold in remote wild areas for several months, it’s a welcome change in their fortunes.

“The high prices mean in the near future I will also be seen in a car,” says mine worker Mxolisi Dube, who began mining for gold illegally in 2008, becoming a “makorokoza,” a reference in the Ndebele language to the action of sifting gold-bearing river silt in a pan. “I want a Toyota Hilux 4×4, with a 2.7-litre engine.”

It’s a scene that’s playing out across Africa, for good and bad.

Ghana, the continent’s biggest producer, expects to double the amount of gold it gets from small-scale miners to $12 billion by the end of next year, and Ethiopia’s central bank said record deliveries of the metal are boosting its reserves.

But, in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, rebel groups are pressuring ordinary citizens into mining the metal to capitalise on the price surge.

So far, there’s no sign that the rally will come to an end. The price of the metal has surged 22% since Trump’s inauguration and is up by three-fifths since the beginning of last year. It hit a record of $3,432 an ounce on May 6, and Goldman Sachs forecast it will reach $3,700 by year-end.

On the one hand, it’s refreshing to see the mineral wealth of a country uplifting the lives of locals, but on the other hand, exploitation seems to have increased with the rise in gold prices.