Alem Kibreab, from the Eritrean Ministry of Energy and Mines told Reuters, that another eight companies have been awarded licences for gold mining in Eritrea.

The new entrants are named as Andiamo Exploration and London Africa from Britain, Land and Energy and Zhongchang Mining from China, The Mining Share joint venture from Lybia and Eritrea, South Boulder and Gippsland from Australia as well as Spice Minerals from India.

Further, he informed Reuters that Eritrea’s first mining project, which is the Bisha Mining venture will start producing gold around the third quarter of 2010.

Alem states, that Eritrea is well aware of the negative side effects a gold boom could cause for the country, referring to historic exploitation of Africa’s mining resources by short term focused decision making.Thus Eritrea would aim for a sustainable and long term approach in developing the mining sector, which is expected to have important multiplier effects for the development of other industrial areas in the country.

Eritrea’s gold ventures appear to be promising and first signs where the road might lead to, can be observed from Nevsun Resources and its Bisha project in the near future. In March 2009 capitaleritrea reported about Nevsun’s ownership structure as well as the financial result it made for 2008.

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