Rights to sites where gold can be mined sold at online auctions

As it was reported earlier, in the middle of April, the first land plots with the right of gold mining were put up for online auction, Spot writes.

The starting price is set at 7.5 million soums, the price rises every 10 minutes. In Samarkand region on April 22, tenders were held in three of such areas. One of them was sold for 92.2 million soums.

In Navoi region, tenders were held in ten areas – all were sold. Here prices were quite different – from 7.8 million soums to 22.1 million soums.

In November 2018, the president signed a decree on the legalization of prospecting. Since March 2019, it has become a separate type of business – you can get a license and start mining precious metals. To do this, you do not even need to register a legal entity – it is enough to be an IE.

Licenses are issued on the basis of online trading for a period of three years. To participate in the auction, you must submit an application on the E-ijro Auksion website and pay a deposit of 5% of the estimated value of the land plot.

The metals extracted by the prospecting method can be sold through specialized cash registers, as well as to businessmen who have a license for jewelry trading.

In 2019, 405 land plots will be allocated for gold mining, most of which are 1 ha (total 403.4 ha) in the Navoi and Samarkand regions.

In Uzbekistan, there are enough areas with gold for prospectors. So, in particular, it is known about the territory with a total area of 590 hectares, where gold reserves in the depths exceed three tons. It is not possible to extract this gold by industrial means, it can be processed by only prospecting method.

Private traders know this and, until recently, have mined gold here, even if this activity was illegal. In some areas, such as Navoi, Samarkand and Bukhara regions, the problem has become systemic. The gold extracted by private traders, of course, goes into the shadow market and is illegally exported out of the country.

It is expected that now illegal prospectors will come out of shadows and begin to work legally.