Wa, July 14, GNA - There are bright prospects for large scale gold mining in the Upper West Region by an Australian mining company that has made promising discovery of the mineral along the Burkina Faso and Cote D'Ivoire borders in the region.

Mr Jon Richardson, Australia's High Commissioner in Ghana, said the gold mine that would be established would be the first in the northern part of the country and would create employment and generate income to reduce poverty in the area.

He was speaking during a courtesy call on the Upper West Regional Minister, Mr Ambrose Dery.

The High Commissioner said the company, Azuma Resources that has been prospecting for mineral in the area for some time now, was named after Ghanaian boxing legend, Azuma Nelson, because of the high regard Australians had for him.

He said the company has been listed in the Australian Stock exchange.

Mr Richardson said the High Commission was delighted to be back in the country after a long period of absence and would continue to forge closer cooperation with Ghana in several areas in order to translate policies into realities.

Mr Dery said the region lacked good roads and other infrastructure to engineer its economic growth and was therefore happy that Australia had introduced a new water pumping technology in the area to help farmers undertake all year round agriculture.

He said the provision of large-scale irrigation facilities was a very difficult task and the expansion of the new water pumping technology for domestic use and farming would address the problem of the emigration of the youth from the region during the dry months of the year.

Mr Richardson inaugurated two tube wells for small-scale irrigation constructed at Brutu in the Lawra District by PRONET and Concern Universal both NGOs with funds from the Australian High Commission.