ACCRA, Ghana — Ghana is preparing for what its government describes as a “New Economy”, one designed to move the country beyond economic stabilisation and towards an economy driven more deliberately by production, jobs, investment and wealth creation.
And at the Loveworld Trade and Investment Forum (LTIF) 2026 in Accra, Ghana’s gold sector offered perhaps one of the clearest examples of what that transformation could look like.
Speaking at the two-day forum, Sammy Gyamfi, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board (GoldBod), highlighted the importance of production, trade, trust and innovation in building Africa’s economic future.
His comments came as Ghana prepares to unveil the details of its New Economy programme in the 2027 Budget.
From stabilisation to production
For Ghana, the proposed New Economy agenda represents a shift in emphasis.
The Finance Ministry says the government wants to move beyond stabilising the economy towards job creation, wealth generation and sustainable growth, with the economy increasingly strengthened by what Ghana itself produces.
Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson has described stabilisation as a necessary foundation rather than the final destination.
The next phase, he says, is transformation.
The government has said the broader programme will involve a proposed US$10 billion investment in key sectors, with further details expected in the 2027 Budget.
Forson has also said the programme will seek to turn imports into opportunities for domestic production — essentially asking why Ghana should continue importing goods that it has the capacity to produce competitively at home.
That is where the idea of a New Economy becomes important.
It is not simply about spending more, it is about what the spending produces.
Gold as a test case
In an exclusive interview with LN247 senior correspondent, Yemisi Lanre-Idowu, he reiterated that Gold sits at the centre of that conversation. He said funding for the new economy will be derived internally and generated from Gold mining and processing.
Ghana is one of Africa’s major gold producers, but for years much of the economic value associated with the mineral has been captured beyond the point of extraction.
The emerging policy direction is to retain more of that value inside Ghana — through formalised purchasing, refining, processing and stronger control of the gold value chain.
The government’s 2026 Budget reported that between January and October 2025, Ghana’s small-scale gold exports reached 81.7 tonnes valued at about US$8.1 billion, while large-scale gold exports stood at 74.1 tonnes valued at about US$6.6 billion.
Those numbers show the scale of the opportunity. But they also raise a bigger question: How much of that value can Ghana retain?
Don’t just export the gold
Ghana’s strategy increasingly focuses on moving beyond the export of raw or minimally processed minerals.
In February, the Finance Ministry said government was working with GoldBod to increase local processing and refining, describing the move as part of a wider industrialisation and economic transformation strategy.
And there are early signs of that shift.
GoldBod CEO Sammy Gyamfi said in August that 7.1 metric tonnes of GoldBod-purchased gold had been refined locally in 2026.
He said local refining was helping Ghana retain refining fees that would otherwise have gone to overseas refining centres, while supporting jobs and economic activity.
However, he also acknowledged a major constraint: Ghana’s current refining capacity is not sufficient to process all the gold purchased by GoldBod.
That limitation is important.
Because the New Economy cannot be built simply by changing who buys the gold.
It requires the factories, refineries, laboratories, technology, finance and skilled workers needed to create more value locally.
A new role for GoldBod
Ghana has also been expanding GoldBod’s role in the gold economy.
In February, the Finance Ministry announced plans for GoldBod to purchase at least 20% of large-scale gold output under a revised acquisition framework, with the gold to be processed locally before being moved into the international market and, in part, Ghana’s reserves.
By August, the government had signed an agreement with the Ghana Chamber of Mines to purchase 30% of gold output from large-scale mining companies under the Ghana Accelerated National Reserve Accumulation Programme.
The gold is intended to be processed and refined locally.
That policy is significant because it links three objectives: Gold production. Local value addition. Foreign-exchange reserves.
In other words, Ghana is attempting to make its natural resources work harder for the domestic economy.
But the New Economy is bigger than gold
Gold is only one example. The wider New Economy agenda is about directing investment towards productive sectors capable of creating jobs, generating wealth and reducing excessive dependence on imported goods. That means agriculture, manufacturing, technology amongst other businesses capable of producing for Ghana, and eventually exporting to the rest of Africa.
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