Newmont has agreed to sell a gold mine in Ghana to a Chinese miner for $1.0 billion, the latest divestiture by the world’s biggest gold miner as it turns its focus to copper.

China's Zijin Mining Group will buy the Akyem Gold Mine Project in Ghana from U.S.-based Newmont Corp for $1 billion, the companies said on Wednesday. The sale is a part of Newmont's ongoing programme to divest non-core assets as the company makes a strategic shift to focus on its tier one assets,

Ghana has a gold problem: illegal mines, known as 'galamsey', where men work without proper protective equipment. It threatens their lives – and the environment.

At an unlicensed gold mine in Ghana, men in t-shirts, shorts and rubber boots wade through pools of muddy water laced with mercury, pull out rocks with bare hands and operate a rickety sluice as they search for the precious ore.

At the expense of workers’ health, increased crime and adverse environmental effects, the heightened price of gold stimulates Ghanaian black market mining industry