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This drop in export revenues contrasts with Mozambique’s forecasts to produce more than 4.1 million carats of rubies in 2025, an increase of 5% over 2024 production, according to government data.
Revenues from ruby exports fell 30% in the first quarter of the year, year-on-year, to USD 5.1 million, according to data from Mozambique’s central bank. This performance compares with USD 7.2 million from January to March 2024, according to the latest statistical report on exports from the Bank of Mozambique.
This drop in export revenues contrasts with Mozambique’s forecasts to produce more than 4.1 million carats of rubies in 2025, an increase of 5% over 2024 production, according to government data.
The previous document on the economic forecast for 2025 estimated the production of 4,143,832 carats of rubies in mining concessions in Mozambique from January to December, being the “product with the greatest weight in the overall structure of precious and semi-precious stones” produced in the country, with 76% of the total destined for export.
Growth of around 5% is forecast for 2025, compared to 2024, due to the increase in the processing plant’s capacity of SLR Mining, according to the same economic and budgetary estimate. Ruby production in Mozambique had skyrocketed in 2024 to almost four million carats, an increase of 46% over the previous year, according to previous government data.
Ruby production thus grew from 2.71 million carats in 2023 to 3.95 million carats in 2024, when the target set by the government was 3,080,895 carats last year. Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM), owned by London-listed emerald and ruby miner, Gemfields, plans to triple processing at its ruby mine in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, to 600 tonnes per hour, a Gemfields source told Lusa in June, in an investment of USD 70 million (€59.8 million).
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Gemfields, which owns and operates the mine, acknowledged at the time that the construction of the second ruby processing unit, known as PP2, at MRM represented “a crucial project to increase the production of premium rubies and generate additional revenue for the group by the end of 2025”.
