Uganda will build East Africa’s first ever gold refinery by the end of this year after Africa Gold Refinery Limited (AGRL), a local mining company, announced plans to set up the plant in Entebbe, south of the capital Kampala.

The refinery will cost $20 million to build and will have a production capacity of one ton of pure gold per month. It will be supported by Tony Goetz & Sons N.V., a Belgium investor.

The plant will be used to refine gold from Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and other gold-producing countries in the region Reuters reported.

The move came three months after President Yoweri Museveni said that the East African nation would build its own refinery to enable Uganda and the region export purified gold and get more revenue from the mineral, Insider quoted Museveni as saying.

The opening of the refinery will boost the nation’s earning from gold exports.

Exportation of gold earned Uganda 30 percent of its total foreign revenue last year, RareGoldNuggets.com reported.

The major gold mining regions in the nation are Mubende, Namutumba, Mayuge, Ibanda, Karamoja and Buhweju.

Uganda, DRC, Tanzania and South Sudan export unpurified gold which earns them $970 per ounce while purified gold sells at $1,212 per ounce.

Tanzania and DRC are two of the biggest producers of gold in Africa, alongside DRC, which are major targets of the gold refinery. Uganda also re-exports gold from neighboring South Sudan.

Tanzania lacks a refinery to process pure gold and exports the mineral to South Africa. The government announced plans to look for investors to build a refinery in the nation in April, Citizen reported.

Gold mining in Uganda and DRC is poorly regulated and there are rife allegations of using child labour. The trade has also been named as a major cause of conflicts in DRC.

In Uganda, there are about 15,000 children working in the nation’s gold mines, The Guardian reported.

The United Nations named Ugandan firms, Uganda Commercial Impex (UCI) and Machanga Limited as key involved in smuggling of gold from the eastern parts of DRC, which has be torn by decades of civil unrest, The Monitor reported.

Illegal mining of the mineral and a booming black market in gold  has cost DRC billions of dollars in revenue over the last half a decade alone.

East Africa’s mining sector has attracted investors after surveys established the existence of commercially viable gold, base metals, titanium, diamond and vermiculate in various parts of the region.