Precious Mineral Marketing Company (PMMC) is considering a listing on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) to shore up its capital and meet the company’s financing needs in the future. Mr. Henry Ford Kamel, Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, disclosed this at the 5th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the company in Accra last week. He however declined to give any timetable, saying it is a plan that is being discussed by the Ministry. If the listing occurs, PMMC will be following in the steps of other state-owned enterprises like GOIL which have gone public to raise capital for expansion. The Deputy Minister praised the company’s success over the years, and his ministry has approved delivery of a bullion-van for the company to enhance its transactions. Mr. Kwabena Kyere, Board Chairman of the company, said last year was full of challenges for the industry. He said market liberalisation coupled with internal and external factors as well as competition characterised the operations for gold, diamonds and jewellery. He said, nonetheless, the company surmounted the challenges by the adoption of new management strategies. These strategies reflected in the pricing policies, reliability in payments, value-addition, customer service, flexibility, high quality and ethical standards for the jewellery products which are tailor-made to suit the clientele, resulting in positive customer-response to all the marketing initiatives. “The diversified efforts initiated during the year under review enabled us to respond to these challenges and enabled us to end the year successfully, thereby increasing our income and profits,” he stated. The company achieved a profit before tax (PBT) of GH¢895,760, representing an increase of 19.71% over the previous year’s result of GH¢748,229. Turnover increased to GH¢149.4 million, over and above year 2009’s amount of GHC 112.2 million, an increase of 33.20% due to the huge turnover achieved from the gold exports. Its purchases and exports of gold represented about 12% of national gold output and surpassed the output of all operating mines, with the exception of Goldfields, Tarkwa, Newmont and Ahafo. Exports of gold, diamonds and jewellery sales generated foreign exchange of US$207million, all of which was repatriated into the country through the banking system. In order to maintain its position and support growth of the the economy, the company will commission a diamond-polishing plant and start polishing rough diamonds mined locally. It will develop other local stones for ornament-making by intensifying research, the Board Chairman said. The company will ensure the implementation of a variety of training programmes to sharpen the skills, knowledge and technical competence of staff to provide for proper succession in the company, and to meet the future human resource needs, he added. Meanwhile, the company paid out GH¢350,000 as dividend to the government. This represents an increase of 40% over the previous year’s dividend of GH¢250,000. Source: The B&FT