Suriname publishes two official gold export figures for 2024 that are 12.6 tonnes apart, and no published document explains the difference. The Central Bank of Suriname (CBvS) has almost 27 tons; the other, our own contribution to the United Nations, amounts to just over 14 tons. The countries that buy Surinamese gold now report more than both figures.
According to reporting from the CBvS, the country exported 26.87 tons of gold in 2024. That figure is shown in table 25 of the bank statistics and is repeated in the quarterly report for the last quarter of 2025: 26,868 kilograms. The Ministry of Finance and Planning rounds it up to 26.9 tons of registered exports.
But in UN Comtrade, the United Nations trade database, for 2024, under customs code HS 7108 – raw and semi-processed gold – a quantity of 14,311 kilograms is listed, worth just over a billion US dollars. That is barely more than half of what the central bank reports.
Buyers above both figures
The buyers of Surinamese gold in turn report more than both Surinamese sources. Their imports for 2024 amount to between 29.7 and 30.6 tonnes, 10 to 14 percent above the Central Bank figure. Some of that is based on an estimate: the United Arab Emirates publishes the value of its imports, not the weight.
Converted at gold prices on the London Stock Exchange – assuming the Emirates paid 88 to 96 percent of that price, as they did between 2019 and 2023 when they published both data – that amounts to 10.9 to 11.8 tonnes. Even at the full London price, the total remains above the central bank’s figure at 29.2 tonnes.
It is not a one-time deviation. This is evident from an analysis prepared by Antoine Bachelin Sena, structural risk analyst and Director of Strategy at the Institut Atlantique Sud in São Paulo, Brazil. Every year since 2019, importing countries reported more gold than the CBvS. Compared to the UN declaration of Suriname, this was only different in 2021 and 2022, when the declaration was equal to the total that buyers had declared or was slightly higher. For 2023, the UN declaration does not provide a total weight, but air freight shipments – 99.9 percent of the value – weigh 19.1 tonnes, compared to 31.8 tonnes reported by buyers.
The two Surinamese figures have not always been so far apart. In 2021 and 2022 the difference was 1 to 3.5 tons. In 2019, the central bank counted 39.6 tons and the UN stated 31.7 tons, while buyers reported 54.6 tons. For 2025, the bank puts it at around 22 tonnes, the UN estimate at 14.5 tonnes and buyers at roughly 32 to 33 tonnes, although not all importers have yet reported for that year.
Smuggling and small-scale mining
The CBvS quarterly report for the last quarter of 2025 records a 46 percent decline in small-scale production that year. According to authorities, this decline is probably related to smuggling. This concerns 2025 and therefore does not explain the gap in 2024.
Prices do not explain the difference: converted to US dollars per ounce, the two Surinamese statistics for 2024 are within about 8 percent of each other. Where they differ is in the amount of gold. According to Sena, data from customs also offers no solution.
Although Chapter 71 of the tariff also includes jewelry and precious stones, declared exports under that chapter were only US$110,000 above the gold line that year. Nor, according to the analyst, does the difference come from the bank’s “Other” column. “The 245 kilograms for 2024, all from October to December, is already included in the 26.87 tonnes and explains the entire difference with the 26,623 kilograms that the bank published for 2024 until September 2025,” he says. Compared to 12.6 tons, those 245 kilograms hardly amount to anything.
No question of guilt
The analysis emphasizes that no documented explanation has been found. The two formulators may differ in coverage, timing or methodology, but that has not been tested, he says. The analysis does not point the finger at a company, institution or person and does not claim to know which series of figures is complete. The gist is simpler: for the same year, one country publishes two official export figures that are 12.6 tonnes apart, and the countries that buy its gold report more than both.
In August, the government announced a Gold Board, a gold authority to be established by law that must cover the chain from extraction to export. President Jennifer Simons reiterated the plan in her September 30 annual address, and on October 7, two teams were installed to prepare for the incorporation. The authority does not yet exist. Once she arrives, one of the first practical issues will be which of these figures to start with, Sena concludes.
