JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - A 5.8 per cent drop in South Africa’s gold output last year forced the world’s former top producer to slip to fourth in the global production ranking, the chamber of mines said Friday. Gold production declined 5.8 percent in 2009 after falling 14.5 percent in 2008, with South Africa having ranked as the world’s largest gold producer for most of the last century up until 2006. “The 2009 production number means that South Africa has slipped down to position four on the global production ranking, behind China, Australia and the United States,” the chamber said in a statement. However gold mining remained critically important to the country’s economy as the industry earned about R48.7 billion (6.6 million US dollars, 4.8 million euros) in foreign exchange, the chamber said. South Africa’s mines were hit hard by South Africa’s chronic electricity woes in 2008 which caused countrywide blackouts and a week-long shut-down of mines. “The 5.8 per cent year-on-year decline in production in 2009 was a significant improvement on the large 14.5 per cent decline in production that occurred in 2008 mostly as a result of the electricity crisis,” it said. China eclipsed South Africa as the world’s largest gold producer in 2007.

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