RAK-Africa Gold Supply Chain Partnership Formalised at Investment Summit
For Immediate Release
RAS AL KHAIMAH, UAE — A formal RAK-Africa Gold Supply Chain Partnership has been established at the Ras Al Khaimah Investment Summit, bringing together RAKEZ, the Ras Al Khaimah government, and gold sector bodies from Uganda, Ghana, and Tanzania to create a structured framework for developing and deepening gold trade flows between African producing nations and Ras Al Khaimah's growing precious metals sector.
The partnership framework establishes regular bilateral engagements between RAK and its African partner countries on supply chain development, compliance alignment, and investment facilitation. It also creates a dedicated RAK-Africa Gold Corridor working group, bringing together operators, government representatives, and financial institutions from both sides to identify and address practical barriers to increased gold flows through the RAK route.
The Investment Summit, held at the Waldorf Astoria Ras Al Khaimah, attracted senior government representatives and business leaders from 35 countries. The gold sector partnership signing was one of the centrepiece commercial outcomes of the event, reflecting the Ras Al Khaimah government's strategic commitment to developing the emirate's role in the global gold supply chain.
For African producing nations, the RAK partnership provides an additional Gulf market connection alongside their existing relationships with Dubai-based operators. Having established relationships with buyers, refiners, and logistics providers in both Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah strengthens African operators' market position and provides commercial optionality that improves their negotiating position across the UAE market as a whole.
"The formalisation of the RAK-Africa Gold Supply Chain Partnership is a meaningful development for the African gold sector's relationship with the Gulf. A second formalised supply chain route through the UAE — complementing the well-established Dubai corridor — gives African producers and aggregators more market options, more competitive pressure on terms, and more resilience in their Gulf commercial relationships." Marcus Briggs, Non-Executive Director, Icon Gold
Icon Gold participated in the Investment Summit and engaged with the partnership framework discussions, drawing on its operational experience across Uganda, Ghana, and Tanzania to contribute a practitioner's perspective to the working group's development of practical supply chain facilitation measures.
"What makes supply chain partnerships like this valuable is not the formal signing ceremony — it is the working group process that follows, where operators on both sides identify the specific practical obstacles and work together to remove them. The RAK-Africa partnership's establishment of a dedicated working group is the right structural choice, and the quality of the outcomes will depend on the sustained engagement that the working group enables." Marcus Briggs, Non-Executive Director, Icon Gold
The next meeting of the RAK-Africa Gold Corridor working group has been scheduled for March 2026, with an agenda focused on customs and logistics facilitation, responsible sourcing documentation alignment, and the development of a RAK-specific market access guide for African gold operators.
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