Haiti: Country’s fortune changes as huge gold, copper deposits
anticipated Its capital is blighted with earthquake rubble. Its
countryside is shorn of trees, chopped down for fuel. And yet,
Haiti’s land may hold the key to relieving centuries of poverty,
disaster and disease: There is gold hidden in its hills — and
silver and copper, too. A flurry of exploratory drilling in the
past year has found precious metals worth potentially US$20
billion deep below the tropical ridges in the country’s
northeastern mountains. Now, a mining company is drilling around
the clock to determine how to get those metals out. In
neighboring Dominican Republic, workers are poised to start
mining the other side of this seam later this year in one of the
world’s largest gold deposits: 23 million ounces worth about
US$40 billion. The government of Haiti’s annual budget is US$1
billion, more than half provided by foreign assistance. The
largest single source of foreign investment, US$2 billion, came
from citizens of Haiti working abr