And The Winner Is...

By chance I was at the Shell station buying provisions for my lunch, and I happened to glance down at our city's newspaper.  The Cover Story today was about how our city is the Number One importer of gold in the USA and the Number Three exporter.  And our city, the winner, is:

Miami!  Miami?  Yes...  Wow, whoda thunk it?

Reporter Maureen Whitefield (of the Miami Herald) writes in today's (July 24) edition about some of the major players here, the amounts coming in and out (and where from and where to) and some about the nature of the gold business as a whole.  She provides some data from 2012 (dollar import value of gold: $8.8 billion, dollar export value: $9.2 billion) and notes that 2013 is on track to surpass 2012.

Almost all of this gold comes in and leaves via MIA, our airport.  A fair amount of the gold comes from Peru (which as I have noted before has no gold refineries) as well as countries like Colombia, Bolivia and minor gold-hub Curacao.  Export destinations include Switzerland (hmm, just like in Italy: http://robertmixblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/compro-oro-in-italia-parte-due.html) and the UAE, where Kaloti Metals is based and has a large gold refinery.

What was a real eye-opener for me was the number of major players here...  I will be calling on them in the not too distant future to provide me education and to provide education & fun reading for you all, dear readers.

The link below shows her whole story, including six pictures, she wrote me by email this afternoon that I was not allowed to publish her/their story here at my blog, but clicking the link is easy enough:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/23/3517084/miami-is-a-magnet-for-gold.html

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I need to look into more about the laws in certain Latin American countries re importing and exporting gold, in its various forms, especially how it is taxed and at what parts of the entire gold production process.

I believe that at Newmont's Yanacocha Gold Mine (in northern Peru, discussed to some degree here: http://robertmixblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/review-of-panorama-cajamarquino.html, Ms. Whitefield, you might be interested in seeing how a Peruvian provincial newspaper works...), Newmont sends their "doré bars" (+/- 100 lb bars roughly 60% gold, 40% silver) produced at the mine, and the same for other gold mines, for export to foreign refineries (like here in Miami) because of Peru's silly ideology of not encouraging a gold refining business (with a gross dis-incentive, not allowing a gold refinery to be free of Peru's equivalent of a VAT (tax), a beefy 19%, many other countries do not tax gold sales, and so get the jobs...).

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So, now I know that our city is a major player!  It looks like I will be able to find lots of interesting things to discuss about gold around here.

I already have four companies I want to talk to...  I will not forget pictures either!  Wheeee!